


love me when the fighting stops

by call_lightning



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alcohol, Awkward Flirting, Birthday Party, Domestic Fluff, Eavesdropping, Everyone got therapy and they're real cool now ok, F/F, F/M, Family Fluff, Flashbacks, Future Fic, It's very minor though, Love Confessions, M/M, Multi, Mutual Pining, Nonbinary Character, Physical touch: the love language: the fic, Polyamory, Post-War, Rebuilding, Recreational Drug Use, Sparring, Tattoos, Teenage Rebellion, seriously there is SO MUCH HUGGING
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 08:02:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 30,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27967259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/call_lightning/pseuds/call_lightning
Summary: Nineteen years have passed since the end of the war that ripped Fódlan apart. The young soldiers who helped glue it back together have matured with the recovering continent into shaky, but confident leaders. They have raised their children alongside it, with all of the grace and care they can muster, hoping to right the wrongs of the past through the newest generation. Some of those children are now about to hit some very important milestones.Fódlan’s new dawn has risen, and the kids, as they say, are alright.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Claude von Riegan, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/My Unit | Byleth, Dorothea Arnault/Petra Macneary, Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier, Hilda Valentine Goneril/Claude von Riegan, Marianne von Edmund/Hilda Valentine Goneril, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Original Female Character/Original Nonbinary Character
Comments: 6
Kudos: 12





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What do you get when you smash a loving retrospective family future fic and every coming-of-age teen movie trope together? 
> 
> Whatever this is. You get whatever this is. 
> 
> Featuring: introductions and reunions, gratuitous use of expository flashback italics, a truly ridiculous amount of casual physical affection, birthday presents, protective father!Sylvain, wine aunt!Byleth, and so, so much gay shit. 
> 
> Chapter does include depictions of mild teen drinking/drug use (they’re all 17/18 and the drug is just fantasy weed!)
> 
> Enjoy!

Byleth never stopped being surprised at how many things had changed after nineteen years. 

Nearly two decades ago, the fields she could currently see from her position at the doors of the Blaiddyd northern estate had been darkened by the ash of major spells, mud trudged up by endless movements of troops, and smeared blood that littered the war-torn countryside as abundantly as wildflowers. The dining room where they had pushed tables together to plan distribution of troops and supply lines was returned to its intended setting, with blue cloth covering the ancient wood tables and the smell of baking cakes drifting through the air. The entrance hall that had been transformed into a makeshift hospital and constantly bustled with activity, broken by the screams of the injured and dying, now stood clear and empty with the autumn sun streaming in, any traces of blood and gore and misery long since scrubbed from the stones. She never would have guessed back then, sleep-deprived and on edge as she was almost constantly within the estate’s halls, that she would one day look forward to visiting it each year, even coming to view it as a place of relaxation. 

And then, there was her husband, still just her prince back then, who had prowled the manor grounds at night with shaking hands and a wild bloodshot eye, whispering promises to ghosts until Byleth or one of the other generals tracked him down to try and force him to sleep. Just feet away from where she was standing were the stone steps she remembered holding him on as he ranted to thin air for hours, stopping only to bury his face in her shoulder in apologetic despair. He hadn’t been that man for a long time. The ghost of the Tempest King, like the spirits that had haunted him, had faded from the manor as well over the years.

If you knew King Dimitri Blaiddyd well enough, if you knew what to look for, then you could still manage to make out the lingering effects of his wartime madness. The deep purple bruising under his eye from lack of sleep had faded, but left a permanent tinge of the color tattooed as a shadow. His neck bore a few silvered scars that hinted at the many more covering his body. His hands still had the slight discoloration of his burns from long ago, but they were now interrupted by the silver of a wedding ring that Byleth had placed on his finger herself. He still covered them for the most part, as the tissue would always be sensitive, but chose coverings of velvet or leather now, very rarely cold steel.

He stood, scars and all, next to his former professor and general- now wife and queen- clad in a navy wool jacket with delicate silver trim and white fur cape. His blonde hair, fading a bit into a shade closer to translucent than white or grey, was pulled out of his face to display a calm expression in the morning sun. The only lack of sleep he got now was from late night paperwork and meetings; the only injuries were from small cuts or burns from training or cooking. After all that time, Dimitri was always going to be Byleth’s favorite change since the war had ended. 

Well. That wasn’t entirely true. 

“Did we miss them??”

Three teenagers seemed to burst out all at once from the estate doors and down the steps, skidding to a halt as they reached the front lawn. A young man with brown hair pulled back into a small ponytail in a wool tunic very similar to his father’s rushed up to his side. He started scanning the cloudless sky intently, squinting a bit, and held his hand over his eyes to shade them. 

“Of course we haven’t missed them, how could we miss seeing giant flying lizards in an _open field_ , Evan?” 

The other two teenagers, younger twin girls with light blonde hair and striking teal eyes, caught up with him, parking themselves next to Byleth. The twin closest to her, Mischa, was the one currently teasing her older brother while their sister, Adelaide, tugged on her sleeve, pointing at the horizon. 

“Shut up, I think that’s them!” 

Sure enough, two wyverns had appeared cresting over the tree line, a pure white one with two riders and a smaller brown one with a single rider, who Byleth could just make out was waving furiously in their direction. Her children began waving back enthusiastically, even though she was sure that they were merely small blurs to the rapidly approaching riders. 

Wyvern landings were always an interesting sight. 

Unlike a pegasus, the descending pressure of a fully grown wyvern’s wings and weight usually flattened anything on the ground beneath them before their heavy feet touched earth, often to the dismay of Fódlan landscapers everywhere. These riders did not need to worry about disturbing the estate gardeners’ hard work, however. The Blaiddyd family had seen it fit years ago to install a landing area of limestone and sand similar to ones common in the eastern parts of the country for the frequent visits of their favorite guests. 

Almost instantly after wyvern claws touched stone, a dark-haired teenager with a pink streak in their hair launched themself out of their saddle, riding boots crunching on the gravel, and rushed forward to sweep Evan up into a hug. The resulting momentum hauled him slightly off of his feet, but neither seemed to care much. Some of the newer royal guards stationed at the front doors tensed at the sight of their eighteen-year-old crown prince being hauled into the air like a sack of grain, but if anyone could get away with it, it would be Suri von Riegan, heir to the Almyran throne and one of Evan Blaiddyd’s oldest friends. 

Suri, to much of the two nations’ shared delight and dismay, had inherited all aspects of their mother _and_ father’s blatant cheerful informality. They were shorter than Evan by a few inches, but, also like their parents, had a hidden layer of muscle that allowed them to keep the laughing and protesting prince raised in the air. 

Once Suri deemed it appropriate to return him back to the ground, Evan clasped their arm in a more traditional greeting. “Welcome back to Fódlan, my friend. It’s been a while. I’ve missed you terribly.” 

“It’s good to see you too, Ev!” Suri exclaimed. They fondly brushed the travel dust that they had transferred to him from their hug off of his tunic. “My bed back home is much nicer than the dorms, but I will say that I somehow found myself missing the sounds of your _truly_ hideous snores through the walls at night.” 

Evan gave Suri a soft shove as they slipped into their routine of mutual bickering from Garreg Mach as easily as pulling on an old pair of gloves. “Right, just like I missed you dragging me into your room to put out the fires you kept starting on your desk.”

Suri shook their head at him, finger on their lips. “Come on Ev, I thought we agreed that we were referring to those as unfortunate incense accidents!”

“There’s not enough incense in the country to back that up, Suri.” 

“Well then, I’m lucky you’ve always been a light sleeper.” 

They finally let go of Evan to turn towards Dimitri and Byleth, moving smoothly into a formal bow to both of them with a bright smile. “Your majesties, it’s wonderful to see you again, thank you so much for hosting us.” 

Byleth pulled them into a strong hug before they could even finish straightening up. “Suri, it’s great to see you too. How is that Levin sword treating you?” 

“Oh, it’s fantastic, Aunt Byleth, Baba says he expected me to electrocute myself with it within the first week, but I totally proved him wrong.” 

“So you got shocked the _second_ week, then?” 

They beamed at her. “To the very day!” 

“It’s alright, kid,” came an amused voice from behind them. Suri’s father had dismounted his own wyvern and was making his way over. “Everyone needs to learn at some point how fast it takes eyebrows to grow back.” 

Byleth took in the sight of the Almyran king, one of her closest friends and confidants. His tanned skin was creased with years of laugh lines and windburn, and he had a colorful scarf wrapped around his mussed hair that brought out his eyes. The lean, wiry archer’s muscles of his youth had transitioned into a more comfortable build, but the lines of his broad forearms and shoulders remained unchanged. Most importantly, however, he had finally discarded the mask that he wore over his sincerity for good. Add that to the list of changes Byleth would never get tired of. 

Claude von Riegan; Khalid, High King of Almyra, wiggled his own eyebrows at her, pointing. “For example, my record is a week and a half.” 

“Hello, Claude. Welcome back.” 

“Hiya, Teach,” Claude said, his eyes warm. “Sorry my kid’s idea of diplomacy is to throw the future king of Fódlan around like that in broad daylight, I don’t know where they picked that up.” 

“They could have only learned it from you, Claude,” Dimitri replied, moving to embrace him. “You’ve had no trouble sweeping me off of my feet for years, after all.” 

Claude threw his arms around Dimitri, holding him tight, pressing his face into the thick fabric of the neck of his jacket. His smile was a soft, tender thing. “Hey, Dima.” 

The two men stood there for a short, relaxed moment, one of Dimitri’s hands cradling the back of Claude’s head and the other wrapped around his waist. Then, in a quick fluid motion, Claude moved a foot back, shifted his arms down, dipped Dimitri low as if mid-dance and leaned in to slot their lips together in a kiss. Mischa and Suri let out loud twin whoops, with an equally loud wolf-whistle from Suri’s mother joining in from behind them. Evan covered his face in his hands while Adelaide pretended to retch behind them. Byleth simply smiled. 

Claude and Dimitri broke apart, resting their foreheads together. Her husband was flushed pink and laughing. “I guess I walked right into that turn of phrase, didn’t I?” 

Byleth felt a piece of her heart firmly click back into place at the sight of the two. It did every time. 

“You keep setting the targets up, and I’ll keep shooting them down, love.” Claude winked at him before lifting him back to a standing position. Dimitri fondly squeezed his waist, and then turned with a sheepish expression (completely unchanged from his twenty-year-old self, even on his war-torn body) to the woman smoothing out her windswept pink updo behind them. She had traded out her usual elaborate beaded dress for a more sensible riding blouse and trousers, although her green traveling cloak still shone with metallic embroidery and several golden drop earrings dangled from her ears.

“Queen Goneril, my apologies for neglecting to greet you as well, it is wonderful to see you.” 

“Come _on_ , Dimitri, even you can be allowed to be a little less formal after that whole display,” Hilda said, tugging on his already tousled hair before pulling him in for a hug as well. “I missed you too, but I won’t be making out with you, so you’ll just have to take me at my word.” 

Dimitri chuckled. “It’s a force of habit, I’m afraid, for me to always start so formally. Welcome back to Fódlan, Hilda.” 

“You hear that, kid?” Claude called over to Suri, who was in the middle of comparing their nail polish colors with Adelaide. “You have to have a formal start, and then go from there!” 

“Sure thing, Baba,” Suri shouted back blithely, “Next time I’ll just shove my tongue down Evan’s throat, since that’s acceptable royal treatment for you.”

“Eww!” Adelaide groaned, smacking Suri’s hand. “It’s bad enough when they do it!” 

Evan flung his arm around Suri’s shoulders as they started to walk towards the doors. “You wish, von Riegan, you wish.”

Byleth turned to Hilda, straight-faced. “I don’t know where they get it.” 

The Almyran queen let out a giggle. “I have absolutely no idea.” She looked over her shoulder at the wyverns. “Claude, _azizam_ , will you carry my luggage in for me? Flying just takes so _much_ out of me.” 

“I can get them for you, Hilda,” Dimitri offered, leaning down to hoist their bags up onto his broad shoulder with ease. (The royal servants had long since given up attempting to persuade their king to let them carry in their guests’ luggage instead). “It’s no trouble at all.” 

“Oh thank you so much, Dimitri, I of course would do it myself but my arms just get positively _weak_ after those long rides…” 

She continued to walk and chatter next to him as he handily toted three royal’s worth of luggage back inside the manor, leaving Byleth and Claude remaining outside. He passed the wyvern’s reins off to a stable worker, thanking them, and then turned to link arms with her as they began the walk inside. 

“So, Evan’s eighteen years old now, huh? You feeling old yet, By? I swear he’s still growing- he looks taller than last year.” 

Byleth leaned her head onto his shoulder, looking up at the manor’s blue flags whipping in the breeze. Claude pressed a kiss to the top of her forehead in response, a much more subdued greeting than Dimitri’s, but just as fond nonetheless. 

“It’s either that, or he’s really into the newest style of trouser each year, and knowing Evan, I’m pretty sure it’s the former,” she said. 

“As someone with a kid and a wife who very much are into the latter, I’m inclined to believe you.” 

Byleth snorted. “You know, all he asked for this year for his birthday from the public were books and donations to the food pantries in Adrestia.”

“Oh? And did the courtiers listen to those requests?” 

“ _Saints_ , no, we have more random pieces of riding equipment and weaponry for ten crown princes, let alone one. We sent them all to the castle knights and Garreg Mach the day before we left.” 

“Well, this is embarrassing, but I’m afraid to inform you that I failed to follow those requests then as well, Teach.” 

She eyeballed him from her position on his shoulder. “It better not be anything potentially flammable, Claude.” 

“Of course not! Now, on a completely different note, I need to run ahead just a bit and let Dima know to be particularly careful with one of the trunks.” He pulled away from her, speed-walking through the doors as she chased after him, laughing. 

Byleth never stopped being surprised at how many things had stayed the same after nineteen years.

\---

Officially, the crown prince’s eighteenth birthday was celebrated in the castle in Fhirdiad, and was a two-day-long affair of entertaining visiting nobility and dignitaries from across Fódlan, with enough feasts and pleasantries to make even the most dedicated courtier’s head spin. Evan had bravely held out through the whole event as he was carted from well-wisher to well-wisher, his father whispering apologies to him in between the bowing and scraping and lavish gift presentations. His younger sister Adelaide had stuck by his side through an impressive amount of the celebration, having taken to social charm and court politics seemingly as soon as she learned how to curtsy. (The occupants of the castle liked to joke that her first words had been “diplomatic immunity.”)

Evan was not what most had expected the next ruler of Fódlan would look like. Just two years after the newly united nation had begun its slow, methodical march towards rebuilding after the war, his recently married parents had found him while visiting an orphanage in the southern ranges of Faerghus. According to his mother and his Aunt Mercedes, the people who ran the orphanage believed that something was wrong with him, as he rarely cried as a baby and often chose to simply sit and stare wide-eyed at others as a one-year-old. When his parents were informed of this by a nun who dismissed him as a malfunctioning oddity to be ignored, his father apparently had to activate his Crest while dragging his mother out of the room to keep her from socking the woman in the face. The queen had stormed back in an hour later and declared that they would be adopting him.

_“There was nothing wrong with being a quiet baby,” his mother firmly told him when he was five years old. “You might not have expressed it verbally, but any idiot could see that your eyes were open and taking in the sights around you. It is more important for a person to be observant and reactive than to want to hear themselves talk.”_

_“Like you, Mama?”_

_His mother gave a small smile. “Yes, Evan. I feel the same way.”_

_“Mama?”_

_“Yes?”_

_“Can we read the new books that Aunt Annette sent me?”_

_“Of course.”_

_They sat in the castle library for the rest of the day, her helping him move his fingers along the reading primer’s letters and mouth out words, the only sounds they made the turning of pages and gently whispered questions and answers, as the sun cycled its light through the stained glass windows._

So Evan grew up in the palace and was declared to be his parents’ first son and official heir, although he had known since he was old enough to grasp the concept that he was adopted; it was no secret. His parents were open and honest with their care, and sincerely wished for him to be happy and supported, and he in turn had always viewed them as his true family. There of course had been some muttering amongst the court and throughout the country’s leaders about the legitimacy that an adopted son would have as the heir to the throne. However, ever since Evan’s parents had begun their rule, they and their allies had already taken decisive action towards dismantling the strict rules of blood and Crest-based inheritance for territory leadership.

_“Your Uncle Sylvain had a two-hour shouting match with one of the court historians when you were four,” Evan’s father reminisced as they pruned rose bushes in the castle gardens with Uncle Dedue. “You could hear him shouting about the ‘outdated mess of blood-obsessed windbags’ from the basement kitchens.”_

_“Is that when him and Uncle Felix adopted Hanna?”_

_“Yes, your highness,” Dedue said in his deep, comforting voice. He passed Evan one of the smaller white Duscur roses that he had removed from a stem. Evan placed it gently in the pocket of his new coat. He had received it for his seventh birthday and was very proud of how grown-up it made him look. “They adopted her from a Srengi refugee camp just a few months later.”_

_“And then Anya thought that all babies came from Sreng because of that.”_

_“That’s right,” his father chuckled. “I wish I could have seen Sylvain’s face when he had to go through that particular explanation with her.”_

_“Where_ do _babies come from, father?”_

_“Ah-”_

_His father shot a wide-eyed glance towards Dedue over his shoulder._

_“-you know, Evan, that sounds like a conversation you should have with your mother.”_

Two years after adopting him, the queen became pregnant, and his two sisters, the twins, were born. A whole new whirlwind of controversy spiraled up then with the appearance of biological children, especially with Mischa having been born with their father’s Crest, but their parents stood firm behind their decision. 

_“It’s not like I_ want _to be queen anyway,” Mischa grunted, balancing Adelaide on her shoulders so that she could reach a higher branch of the apple tree they were attempting to climb. “You’re both so much better at talking to people than me, and Father’s always complaining about how heavy his ceremony clothes are. I’m going to be your knight, just like Aunt Ingrid.”_

_“And I’m going to be in your cabinet!” Adelaide declared, finally grabbing hold of the branch and swinging herself up to balance on it. Her blonde hair had slipped out of the clips that she was using to try and keep it out of her face while she was growing it out after her recent announcement that she was actually a girl instead of a boy. “I’m going to read all the books and memorize all the maps and Anya says that we’re going to ‘kick ass and take names’ together.”_

_“I don’t think cabinet members can swear, Addie.”_

_“Well then, that’s the first law that I’m going to pass when I become one.”_

With Adelaide following close behind him at the party, Evan worked his way through smiling dukes and minor lords, high-ranking foreign diplomats and merchants all eager to shake his hand and bend his ear. His feet ached from the stiff leather of his formal boots and the space behind his ears had started to chafe an hour into the banquet from his circlet, a small but elaborate gold twisted band with sapphires and opals that irritated his skin if he wore it too long. 

Mischa had disappeared with their mother halfway through that day of celebrations. They were eventually found, unsurprisingly, in the castle training grounds, Mischa sparring with her axe against their mother’s sword, both of them in full velvet gowns, tiara and crown perched lopsided on spare training dummies for safekeeping. Dedue and Ingrid had unceremoniously dragged them back to the festivities. His sister then spent the rest of the night slumped on a chair at the edge of the ballroom, only rising to dance with their father and Dedue near the end of the evening before officially taking her leave, slipping off her heels the second she passed the threshold of the ballroom doors.

After what seemed like eons, as the musicians announced their last few songs of the night and castle attendants began clearing the tables of empty goblets and champagne flutes, Evan shot his father a pleading glance to officially announce the night’s end. A minor noble from the former Alliance lands had spent the last half hour chattering loudly into his ear; yet another parent deeply intent on passing their child’s hand in marriage off to the future king.

His parents had strongly emphasized that he had his own choice of future partner, and no rush to choose one, but unfortunately it would take more than a few decades for the ingrained traditional tendency of Fódlan arranged marriages to be reformed. For now, Evan would have to indulge the introductions, smile placidly at thinly veiled bribery, and resign himself to complaining at length to his family in private. It wasn’t like it was all bad; he had made several close friends from the introductions, but they had all agreed that a forced romance wasn’t anything that any of them desired.

“...as I was saying, your highness, Genevieve here is the top of her class at the Derdriu Arts Academy, and is a worthy and considerable match for anyone in the Kingdom, and I dare say, you two look rather striking together, and the lands of Bosier have been _staunch_ supporters of your family’s reign since the war, as I’m sure you are aware...”

The girl in question was standing behind her oblivious father with a deeply uncomfortable look on her face. Her hands were working to unravel a loose thread on her lace fan, fidgeting as she shot him an apologetic glance. Evan knew her, vaguely. He had met her once the previous year just days before her thirteenth birthday- Saints, the poor girl was younger than his sisters and already being paraded around by her father as a marriage prospect. 

Adelaide gave him a look that said she was already putting the lord’s name on her long-running mental list of nobles to point out to Margrave Gautier-Fraldarius for evisceration at the next council meeting. She gracefully stepped in between the two men.

“Lord Bosier, we have been so flattered by your company tonight, and Genevieve has been absolutely lovely. My lady, I’m sure all the dancing with eligible partners that you have done tonight has made you quite tired, but we look forward to seeing you again.” 

“Yes, that’s right,” Evan took over, “And Miss Bosier, I do hope I can-”

 _"Hear some of her harp music,"_ Adelaide whispered under her breath.

“-attend some of your harp performances at a later date. For now, though, I wish you both a good evening.” 

Adelaide subtly fist-bumped Evan behind his back. 

\---

Evan’s _real_ birthday party was held at the Blaiddyd’s northern estate two weeks later. The capitol had finally emptied of visitors and he had managed to sleep off the residual exhaustion from the constant extroversion as well as the lingering hangover from the rich wine pushed on him for three days straight. The event at the estate was really only half of a birthday party; it was more of a good excuse just for him and his family to invite their friends from across the continent to see each other.

_“So, it’s like a class reunion for you guys,” he commented at dinner one night early in the planning process._

_His parents shared a pained look at that phrase._

_“The term ‘class reunion’ hasn’t- really had the best history for us,” his father said, fidgeting with the strap of his eyepatch. His mother looked at Evan and mouthed the word ‘Gronder,’ shaking her head._

_“Well, ‘class reunion but no one gets stabbed this time’ is probably too long to put on the invitations,” Mischa snorted. She reached across Evan to grab the potatoes on his left._

_The king’s face froze a bit, until Evan’s mother started quietly snickering, the sound rising in volume until his father relaxed again. He dropped his hand from his eyepatch and pulled the potatoes towards himself away from his protesting daughter with a small amused smile._

_“You know, that’s a very good point. It would certainly save money on ink.”_

After the lavish feasts from the castle celebrations, the manor dining hall looked rather tame in comparison. While a not insignificant amount of food was still laid out, a good amount of it had been made by his aunts and uncles over the past few days. Evan could see some of his favorite dishes scattered about: small packages of meat and rice wrapped in grape leaves, Duscur roast lamb that Dedue had simmered for hours with hearty spices, and flaky pastries soaked in honey and brandy that Addie and Ingrid were already eyeing with a hungry glint in their eyes. Annette had even proudly presented him with a (only slightly leaning) three-layer cake with bright blue frosting that he predicted would have everyone’s mouth stained with the color by the end of the night. 

“I hope you like the cake, Evan! I made it with extra chocolate, all by myself!” 

Mercedes let out a small cough behind her, and hid a grin behind her hand. Annette pouted at her partner.

“Fine, fine. I _might_ have had some help.” 

Mercedes handed him a handwritten cookbook, filled with some of his favorite recipes from the Academy that she had somehow managed to charm out of the kitchen staff, along with some of her own pastry recipes. “The cake is on page twenty-two,” she mentioned. “I also left room for you and your friends to add your own recipes, for fun!” 

Evan hugged the book to his chest. “I’ll treasure it forever.”

After some time, Suri and their father arrived downstairs, having bathed and changed from their travel gear into more formal attire. Like Evan, Suri had decided to forego wearing a royal circlet for the night, but they did have two wing-shaped gold clips pinned into their curls and a matching set of ear cuffs, giving them the appearance of one of their home country’s messenger spirits, ready to take flight. Their father was not in his full Almyran regalia, but still cut an impressive figure in gold and green silk, a simple bronze band resting on his head in place of a crown. 

“Where’s your mother, Suri?” Evan asked, peering behind them through the doors. 

“Oh, yeah. Mari got here a little under an hour ago-”

“-so they’re going to be a bit...fashionably late,” their father finished, chuckling. “It’s been a while since they’ve seen each other since Marianne’s been catching up with her territory here. I, unlike my darling wife, have better patience.” 

He winked at Evan’s father, who blushed slightly. Years of war and monarchy had never managed to stop the fact that he was easily flustered by overt romantic advances, something that Evan’s mother and Claude mercilessly exploited. 

Suri rolled their eyes. “Absolutely insufferable, truly. Come open your presents from us now, Ev, before everyone gets here!” 

They had managed to procure a copy of an Almyran natural healing book that Evan remembered admiring the last time he had visited their capitol’s library, as well as some of the rarer ingredients that it listed as an accompaniment. Claude handed over a box with a beautiful silver cloak pin that Hilda had crafted, with a small silver moon and star hanging on a chain between two sapphires. When his parents weren’t looking, Claude also slipped him under the table a box of Almyran firecrackers, charmed to change colors in the air and form images. 

“Just don’t set them off near the gardens or in the forest,” he whispered. “Safety first, even with contraband.”

More guests filtered in as the sun dipped below the horizon, spreading out across the hall to sample the foods laid out and greet each other. The sounds of lively conversation soon began to echo through the raftered ceiling. Evan and his father were currently engaged in their pre-socialization ritual in which they both attempted to eat as many cheese cubes as possible before being forced to talk to someone, while his mother was merrily emptying the majority of a bottle of Morfis wine into an ale mug. 

All three of them looked up when Hilda and Marianne emerged from a nearby side room, looking significantly more disheveled than usual. Hilda looked stunning out of her traveling clothes and into her preferred finery- this time a glittering purple dress with an open back and gauzy sleeves that fit her like a second skin. The Almyran queen jabbed a jewelled hairpin back into her bun before taking Marianne’s arm to head over to him and his parents. 

Marianne clasped Evan’s hand with both of hers. 

“Evan, happy birthday, I hope that they haven’t been pushing you too hard this month.” 

“Hello, Aunt Marianne. You have lipstick on your neck.” 

Her pale skin turned a shade of pink to match her partner’s hair as she rubbed at the waxy mark on her neck. Evan’s father finally took pity on her and leaned in to offer her his handkerchief, which she accepted with a weak smile. Hilda was standing a distance behind them, casually reapplying her lipstick in a small compact mirror. She looked up at Evan and stuck out her tongue at him. 

Suri, at a nearby table talking with their father and Ignatz, poked Claude with a foot and pointed at Marianne and Hilda. The king’s resulting laugh could be heard from where Evan was standing. Without looking, Hilda fondly made a rude gesture over her shoulder in the general direction of her husband. 

When Marianne finished wiping at her neck, she held out a small package of rare tea leaves to him. “I- got you a few teas to try, hopefully you haven’t had them before and they should be interesting.”

Evan accepted the set, turning it to view the handwritten labels on the sides. “No, I haven’t tried these before! Thank you, Aunt Marianne. I love them.”

“I mean, hopefully you won’t like them _too_ much, because I don’t want your new favorite tea to be hard to find...because of me...I mean...oh goodness, that wasn’t the right thing to say, was it?” 

“Don’t worry about it,” Evan amusedly placed the package on a table that was beginning to fill with gifts. “If I find a new favorite it will make it even more precious when I manage to get my hands on it. Will you help me try some later in the week? You are staying, right?”

Marianne smiled back at him. “Yes, I will be staying for a bit, and yes, I would love to, your highness. Now,” her delicate hands pushed him in the direction of the other partygoers, “go see the rest of your family. I’m not going anywhere.” 

Evan debated snagging another handful of cheese cubes, but decided to pace himself. He squared his shoulders and made his way towards the nearest small group of visitors. 

The lamps on the wall flickered a warm, hazy glow upon the partygoers. Laughter bubbled up through the champagne noise of the chamber loudly and often. The night pressed on.

\---

From her raised position at the receiving area with Dimitri, Byleth could see Evan nudge Suri’s shoulder with his own as they leaned against a side refreshment table. He nodded towards the hall doors at the family entering, saying something to them and grinning conspiratorially. Suri straightened up with a jolt, hands adjusting their ceremonial sash and attempted to push back their dark curls into something presentable. They had the same suave, toothy grin as their father plastered on their face, but Byleth had years of experience in reading teenagers. She sensed a thrumming nervousness underlying their body language. 

She turned her head to the doors to the entering family and focus of their attention. Sylvain and Felix were walking arm in arm, looking much the same as they did in their twenties, with only crow’s feet, laugh lines, Sylvain’s full beard, and Felix’s gently greying temples revealing the true passage of time. Unlike their younger selves, however, they had stopped attempting to hide their affection towards each other. Felix no longer mimicked a tensed bowstring every time Sylvain touched him with reverence and gave out smiles and affection much more frequently, and Sylvain no longer attempted to mask his fond glances at his husband with humor or distraction. They were dressed in complementing teal and grey formalwear with white trim, their military uniforms, open carry weapons, and armor left far in the past. 

The Duke and Margrave were followed by a short girl with sandy hair and freckles hauling along a skinny glowering preteen who was the spitting image of a young Fraldarius, down to the messy black ponytail and poorly concealed dagger at her waist. Behind them all was Sylvain and Felix’s oldest daughter, Anya, tall and strikingly beautiful with bright red hair pulled back in the elaborate braids traditional to the far North.

Byleth shot a glance back at the two future monarchs, catching Evan whispering something into Suri’s ear that caused a faint amount of color to creep onto their tan skin. They pushed off the refreshment table, “accidentally” managing to trod on Evan’s foot, resulting in her son blurting out a considerably un-royal swear. Several sets of concerned eyes turned towards the prince- including those of the Gautier-Fraldarius family. Anya’s hazel eyes brightened at the sight of the two. She sidestepped around her bickering sisters to hurry towards them in a rush of blue chiffon. 

She wrapped Evan up in a tight hug, kissing his forehead in greeting. When she turned towards Suri, however, her warm smile morphed into a coquettish smirk. Byleth took a moment to internally bemoan that her two most devious students had passed along their expressions to their offspring. 

Suri had a similar grin on their face, and swept into an over the top bow- pointed leg extended with a deep bend at the waist- and grasped Anya’s outstretched hand to dramatically kiss it. Byleth felt the vibrations of her husband laughing next to her and assumed that he was watching the same display. She felt his hand tap against hers as he leaned down to press his lips to her ear. 

“Look at Sylvain’s face, I think he might genuinely have a heart attack this time.” 

She tore her eyes away from the grandstanding teenagers to their fathers, who were still at the entrance. Indeed, a line was forming between Sylain’s ruddy eyebrows, his jaw clenched tight and ears beginning to match his hair. Felix, on his arm in contrast appeared completely unphased, focusing more on grabbing the dark-haired girl’s collar before she could sprint off. She managed to wiggle free from her dad’s grip when she saw Byleth, ducking under his arm in a flash and rushing over to hug her. 

“Hi, Aunt Byleth!” 

Her voice was slightly muffled from where it was pressed into the layers of satin and corset boning covering Byleth’s stomach, until she kneeled down to the girl’s level. 

“Hi, Caroline. Are you causing trouble for your dads?” 

Caroline wrinkled her freckled nose in the same way that Sylvain often did, scoffing. “They made me ride a horse with _Anya_ here even though I’m big enough to ride my own, I _told_ them-”

“Aunt Byleth! Uncle Dima!” 

Caroline’s sister crashed into the king’s side in a blonde blur, wrapping her arms around him as well. An exasperated _"Hanna!"_ came from behind her from one of her fathers, and the girl pulled back sheepishly. “I mean, your majesties, sorry.” She gave a halfhearted, but technically precise curtsy to both of them. 

Byleth made sure that Sylvain and Felix were distracted with greeting Dimitri and then leaned in to whisper in Caroline’s ear. “I can see that dagger under your belt, does your dad know you have it?” 

The ten-year-old’s eyes widened. “Don’t tell Papa!” 

The queen reached out to slip the dagger from her side surreptitiously. “Put it in your boot like this here, the leather will make the outline harder to see. Just make sure you keep it in its scabbard and don’t jump or roll around so you won’t cut yourself, okay?” 

Caroline nodded with a determined expression. “Dad said I couldn’t bring a weapon until I was older but he has _three_ with him right now, it’s not fair!” 

“Your dad needs to teach you more about weapon concealment,” Byleth agreed. “But you don’t need anything more than a dagger usually at a party, Caroline, and it’s only for emergencies. So don’t take it out and play with it or your dads will probably take all your weapons away.” 

“Okayyy, Aunt Byleth.” 

“Good girl. Now, go say hi to your uncle.” 

They joined the others, Byleth pressing a kiss onto each of Sylvain and Felix’s cheeks and ruffling Hanna’s hair. “Hey, guys. Thanks for coming. Sylvain, unclench your jaw, the kids aren’t doing anything you haven’t seen before.” 

Sylvain huffed as he hugged her with one arm, keeping his gaze on the teenage nobles. “Someone’s got to keep an eye on them, By. It might as well be me.” 

“You’re not going to throw Suri through any windows, are you?” Dimitri asked, amused at his philandering friend turned protective father. “I doubt that would be very beneficial for future Almyran negotiations.” 

“You say that like you’re not going to have any _Almyran negotiations_ tonight,” Felix muttered. Byleth elbowed him. 

“Missed you too, Fraldarius.” 

“Dima, seriously, if they’re going to keep this up all night, you might want to consider boarding up some of these windows because I’m getting really tempted.” Sylvain kept his glare on the three teenagers across the room. Suri was now gesticulating wildly with one hand as they told some sort of story to Anya, who had draped herself along their side to listen. Their other hand was resting just a bit too low on her back for common courtesy, while she played with one of the hoops in their ears, unbothered. Evan was leaning back against the table again with his arms crossed, listening with an amused expression. 

Felix rolled his eyes at his husband. “They’ve been doing this routine for forever, Sylvain, give it a rest, they’re just seventeen-year-olds.” 

Sylvain scowled before running his hand through his hair and turning back to them. “I don’t trust teenagers. Too many hormones, too little brain cells.” 

“Hypocrite.” 

“Grump.” 

“Love you too, dear.” 

“Sylvain, you could always, you know, talk to Suri’s actual parents about this,” Byleth cut in.

Felix snorted. “Last time he did, Claude said that he couldn’t control Suri if he wanted to-”

“-and Hilda just said that she didn’t want to get in the way of ‘young love,’” Sylvain finished. 

Hanna rolled her eyes as well. (She might not have been Felix’s biological child, but the expression was almost a perfect match to his anyway). “Yuck, Suri and Anya aren’t in _love,_ they’re just obnoxious.”

Caroline shot a mischievous glance at her sister. “But don’t _you_ think that Evan is cu-”

Her sister clapped a hand over Caroline’s mouth. Her own collection of freckles stood out on her mortified expression. “Shut up!” 

“But you said that you liked his-”

“-we’re going to get some cake now, bye your majesties!” Hanna yanked on Caroline’s arm to drag her off as her sister giggled at her distress. 

“Eat some real food first, girls!” Felix called after them. They gave no indication that they had heard him, instead attempting a small wrestling match as they were torn between tables. 

“The older they get, the more I feel for you for having to deal with teaching kids that age.” Sylvain pinched the bridge of his nose. “How many times have I apologized for being such a monstrosity back then, now?” 

“The number’s well into the hundreds, but I’ll always take another,” Byleth teased. 

“Add another to me and Dimitri and Ingrid’s tally too while you’re at it, for dealing with you,” Felix grunted, but his eyes remained affectionate. 

Sylvain clasped Felix’s hands, expression dramatically serious. “Every day of my life, babe.” 

It was Dimitri’s turn to snort at them. “If you’re done self-flagellating, Sylvain, Ingrid’s over in the back with Dorothea and Petra.” 

The Margrave shot him a wink as his husband steered him brusquely around by the elbow to go meet the rest of their friends. “Come on, your highness, you know I haven’t minded being whipped for years now.” 

Her husband shook his head beatifically at them, strands from his loose ponytail falling across his face. “I’ll go separate the girls and try to get some vegetables into them.” 

“You’re the best, Uncle Dima!” Sylvain hollered over his shoulder. Dimitri gave Byleth’s hand a quick squeeze before heading over towards their goddaughters.

Byleth could see the dual queens of Brigid and Dimitri’s right-hand knight talking near the front doors, most likely about Dorothea’s latest starring role in the International Opera based on the poses she was making. Mischa had found her way to them as well, and was sharing a plate of meat skewers with an older girl whose dark maroon hair was shaved on one side, delineated with a braid at the part and geometric tattoos decorating the shaved half. She had the muscular back and upper arms of an archer exposed from the same printed green and purple cloth draped around her shoulders as Petra, dotted with small golden charms and bells. If Byleth knew her daughter and Daphne, the crown princess of Brigid, they were most likely itching to interrogate Ingrid on fighting techniques. Those two had latched onto Ingrid like barnacles to the Brigid fleet’s ships ever since she had given them their first combat lessons as children. Byleth had spent quite a bit of time early on assuring a panicked Ingrid that she was qualified enough to teach the girls, but she had grown into her role as a mentor surprisingly quickly. It was now hard to match the nervous young woman agonizing over how to teach a child simple swordcraft to the current feared instructor of whom all knights-in-training spoke about with awed whispers.

As she watched them burst into applause at whatever part of the opera Dorothea was pantomiming, she saw Suri, Anya, and Evan bound over to Daphne, dragging her off to gossip with them at the dessert table. Suri and Evan both gave quick bows to the queens, and then to Sylvain and Felix as they approached (Byleth decided that those two showing _some_ manners rather than none at all was acceptable under the specific circumstances), before running off as fast as their formal clothes and decorum allowed them to catch up with their former classmates. 

Evan, Daphne, Anya, and Suri had been inseparable since almost birth; all of them had birthdays within a year of each other and all of them had graduated from Garreg Mach just that spring. They often spent summers and holidays traveling between their three respective countries to visit one another outside of school as well. Byleth still remembered the last time Anya and Evan had come back from their month in Almyra with tomato-red sunburns that had taken a week to fade, even with healing magic. Both children were also sporting new piercings with jewelry courtesy of Hilda (although Sylvain and Felix had made Anya take out the nose piercing when she returned home). Evan had also shown her, after swearing her to secrecy, the stick-and-poke tattoo on his side that all four of them had applied to each other one winter in Brigid. It was a far cry from the isolated, or repressive (or both) upbringings that Byleth and many of her friends had experienced. That was the unspoken conclusion that all of the childrens’ parents had come to, at least. While they still impressed upon their heirs the lessons of leadership they would need in the future, there existed a relieved sort of acceptance to let their kids make the carefree mistakes and rebellious memories that most of their parents had been deprived of.

_“Did you know that the kids gave themselves tattoos in Brigid?” Byleth asked, laying on her back in the grass one summer reunion in Almyra. Several colorful birds sang to each other in the trees of the oasis they had stopped at, the aquamarine of the water striking against the desert. Her hand absently played with Dimitri’s hair as he rested his head on her chest._

_“Really?” Claude’s voice piped up behind Dimitri from his own head’s position on her stomach. The two men had their hands entwined, facing each other. “Do you know what they look like?”_

_“A primrose, I think. Four petals. Evan’s looked pretty professional, all things considered.”_

_Dimitri tore his gaze away from Claude’s to look up at the sky pensively. “A primrose, hmm?”_

_“Do you know if it has a fancy symbolic meaning, Dima? All I know about them is that the oil’s good for skin conditions and it’s a pretty decent diuretic.”_

_“You can put them in soup,” Byleth added. “Or make tea out of them.”_

_Claude laughed. “We’ve got the practical uses down, but I doubt they wanted to immortalize it on their skin for its edible properties.”_

_“I believe that some can symbolize youth,” Dimitri mused, “or everlasting bonds.”_

_“See, that seems more on the nose.”  
_

_“The tattoo’s on their torsos, actually.”_

_“Teach! You made a joke!”_

_Dimitri’s open smile was always one of the most beautiful sights Byleth would ever see. “If I’m remembering my lessons correctly, I also believe that one meaning is never being able to live without the other.”_

_“Maybe we should get tattoos,” Byleth pondered._

_“I’ll pass,” Dimitri said, “I’ve got enough scars and burns marking me up as is.”_

_Claude gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Well,” he said, “I’m glad the things that are permanent on our kids’ skin are ones they chose to put there.”_

_He turned his head back up to the soft white clouds drifting above them. “What do you think that cloud looks like?”_

_“It’s definitely a fish.”_

_“You think every cloud looks like a fish, Byleth.”_

_“You don’t?”_

Many nobles and leaders of each country as well as those in the church often praised how the bonds between the nations’ eventual rulers spelled out an even greater and more prosperous future to come. Byleth and Dimitri, however, were grateful for their friendship for other reasons. Unlike the splintered childhoods of most of their parents, their children had peers who knew the pressures of leadership that they were all facing, and were fiercely loyal and devoted to one another. Simply describing the four of them as “diplomatic allies” was like referring to a mountain range as rocky terrain, or like calling the ocean a fishing pond. 

Dimitri had a particularly heartfelt phrase that he utilized often in public speeches over the years. The war had been won, he said, not just by military might alone or by pure strength of faith, but by the bonds they had built with each other. 

Byleth always had taken that to heart. She knew the children did as well. 

So, she spent the next hour or so shaking off her position as queen in favor of just being the Professor again, making the rounds of the hall and greeting her friends. At one point, she eventually prodded Evan away from whatever boisterous game involving small balls and cups set into a triangle that he and his gang were playing with Leonie and Raphael so he could give a short speech of thanks to everyone, before continuing the reunions.

She spoke with Ferdinand and Lorenz about their positions as ministers of the former Adrestian and Alliance territories, and thanked them for taking time out of their busy schedules to travel so far north. The two presented Evan with a gorgeous saddle and tea set respectively, Ferdinand pressing a finely crafted tin of chamomile into Dimitri and Byleth’s hands as well.

Ashe, Dedue, and Bernadetta were having a quiet conversation at a table in the far corner with Adelaide, discussing a popular novel that had been published earlier that spring. Evan had nearly cried when Ashe passed him some of his personal collection of embellished first edition books on legends and knight’s adventures. Even Byleth then found her eyes stinging a little when Bernadetta, still soft-spoken but no longer plagued with intense agoraphobia and anxiety, shyly gave each of the teenagers a bound copy of her latest writing- part of a series retelling her year at Garreg Mach and the following war, translated into fiction. She turned scarlet when Evan handed her a quill, saying that he would be honored to get the author’s signature. 

Ignatz gave Evan a small framed oil painting of the sun rising over the lake near the manor surrounded by blooming cherry trees. Maya and Raphael chipped in a few bottles of homemade blackberry mead from the inn they all owned together, Maya keeping a firm watch on her and Ignatz’s daughter Giselle, who had been eyeing the bottles with Caroline for the better part of the night with looks that radiated mischief. Byleth made a mental note to sneak the girls a few extra desserts for their valiant heist efforts. 

Dimitri eventually made his way back to her side after completing his own rounds of the room, wrapping a large arm around her shoulders. 

“How do you think the party’s going?” 

“You mean the not-reunion?” 

He nudged her head with his chin like a peeved housecat. “I suppose one could refer to it that way, if they were feeling particularly difficult.” 

Byleth’s grin shifted into a discomforted look as she tugged at her bodice. “I do have one complaint, actually.”

“And what is that, my dear?” 

“The food is _too_ delicious,” she said, her sigh dramatic enough to make Dorothea proud. “I want about four more helpings of the chicken alone, but the corset seems determined to keep my stomach confined to three.” 

She looked up at him to bat her eyes, feigning a pitiful demeanor and Dimitri chuckled, hand slipping under her cape. It tucked itself under the velvet and tugged at a few of the middle knotted strings of the offending garment in a practiced movement. Loosening her corset by touch was a common enough occurrence that navigating the complicated lacing blind was practically second nature to him. It was one of the many perks of being married that no one ever mentioned in the grand fables and love songs. She sighed as she felt some of the pressure release along her abdomen, and kissed his cheek in thanks, lips skimming the silk of his eyepatch. 

“Have you seen the kids?” 

Dimitri skimmed the hall, finding Mischa dangling Caspar and Lindhardt’s two small recent adoptees each upside-down by a leg while they shrieked with delight, Caspar roaring with laughter at the sight while his husband watched fondly from the nearby table with his head propped up by his hand. Adelaide had apparently taken over for Maya in supervising Caroline and Giselle, and was allowing them to lead her by the hand around the room in search of treasures. 

The four oldest were deep in conversation nearby with Petra, Dorothea, and Mercedes. As they approached, she could hear Suri and Petra swapping phrases in the lilting Brigid language. 

“-and it’s really so interesting because it turns out that Brigid and Duscur both use the same verb tense in the phrase-” 

Suri quickly said a sentence that Byleth only caught every other word of, something to do with the ocean, she believed. Her grasp of Brigidian had never been the most solid.

Petra was nodding, looking pleasantly surprised. “It makes sense that we would share similar fishing techniques, but those types of phrases- what are they called?” 

“Idioms.” 

“Yes, idioms, thank you, it is surprising that those are so similar as well. How did you ever manage to make that connection, Suri?” 

“It was the Fódlan Second Language Club!” Daphne exclaimed, eyes alight with pride. “It turns out when you get all of the international students together in a club to practice their Fódlanese, you learn a lot of side information about other countries’ languages and traditions!” 

Byleth vaguely remembered Evan mentioning that Daphne had founded the club their second year, that him and Anya had joined in solidarity immediately, and that Suri was using it as a launchpad in their ongoing attempt to apparently master every language on the continent. 

“Daphne, since you and Suri have both graduated, who is going to take over the club’s leadership?” She joined the conversation, sitting down next to Anya while Dimitri leaned in on her back to listen, resting his arms around her shoulders comfortably. 

“That’s an excellent question!” Mercedes said, “I was just about to ask that myself, I would love to sit in on more meetings this year.” 

“It’s Andres, that second-year cavalier from Duscur.” 

“Paladin,” Evan corrected. “He passed the exam right before the end of the year. We had stable duty together quite often.” Byleth could hear Dimitri _hmm_ quietly in her ear at that information. 

“Oh, wonderful! He’s an excellent student, I know he’ll do a great job.” 

“We were hoping he would!” Suri beamed at Mercedes. “Of course, as her trusty Vice-President, I knew that our esteemed Madame President would leave our baby in only the best hands.” 

Anya said a short phrase in Srengi, laughing. Byleth’s Srengi was even worse than her Brigidian, so she turned her head up to Dimitri with a silent question. 

“She said that Andres is a ‘yolk in the egg,’” he murmured the translation to her, “I believe that means he’s in an ideal situation for his skills.” 

“He also really hates the dining hall eggs,” Evan added, having overheard from their other side. “That’s why it’s funny.” 

Byleth frowned. “Are the eggs that bad?” 

“Byleth, honey, you, Dimitri, and our Ingrid are the only ones who have ever really enjoyed those eggs!” Dorothea laughed. “And I’ve seen you both eat weeks-old rations without batting an eye, so forgive me if I don’t exactly trust your palates.”

Dimitri chuckled. “Well, egg preferences aside, I’m glad that a Duscur exchange student is doing so well at the academy. I’ll have to remind myself to make an effort to meet him the next time we visit the monastery.” 

Evan glanced down to pick at his cuticle at his thumb. “Well, I have actually written him a few letters since I left, so I can let him know. He really wants to meet Dedue.” 

“Sorry that you lost another popularity contest to Uncle Dedue, your majesty,” Anya teased, pulling Evan’s hands gently away to stop him picking at the skin around his nails. Byleth could feel Dimitri’s smile from where his head was resting on top of hers. 

“I’ll see if Dedue wants to accompany us on the next trip, then.” 

Daphne poked Dorothea in the arm. “That reminds me, Mom, tell Aunt Byleth about the song you get to sing in Brigidian in your new show!” 

The diva swept a hand to her heart. “Oh Professor, it’s a spectacular love ballad, all about mistaken identity and letters pretending to be someone they’re not, and love that spans across countries; it’s going to be a real hit!” 

“Her pronunciation is excellent,” Petra gushed, wrapping her arm around her wife’s waist. “I’m so excited for people across the continent to hear how our language translates in music.” 

Dorothea pointed a manicured finger at Anya “You need to promise to drag _both_ of your fathers to the show when it comes to Fhirdiad, because I still haven’t forgiven Sylvain for missing my last performance.” 

“Pa was in Sreng for three months and I had final exams! Unless you want to force Uncle Dima to pause the diplomatic missions for a show-”

“Don’t give her any ideas,” Dimitri muttered into Byleth’s hair. “I can’t guarantee that she wouldn’t succeed.” 

“Also, Dad and the girls went, so it’s not like the whole family skipped out.” 

Dorothea sniffed. “Do you know what Felix did after the last show? He patted me on the shoulder and said, and I quote: _'good job singing.'_ That’s all he said! Can you believe it?” 

“Come on, you know Dad’s not great with the arts. I know that he really did like it!” 

“Still, _'good job singing,'_ Caroline was _eight_ and she gave me a better review than that. That man, I swear.” 

Evan tipped the last of the wine in his goblet into his mouth. “Would you rather he said _'bad job singing,'_ instead?” 

“Oh, you hush, Evan.” Dorothea pressed her hand against her forehead. “At least your parents know how to make a lady feel like a star!” 

“The flowers were all Dimitri’s idea,” Byleth said wryly. He ducked his head back down, embarrassed. 

“I might have gone a little overboard,” he admitted. “I was just excited that the show was traveling again.” 

“You bought out half the flower shops in the city, love.” 

“Supporting the arts andlocal business!” Dorothea clapped her hands together. “It was an excellent move. Perhaps consider something that won’t take up so much room backstage next time, though, my dressing room was getting a little cramped from all the bouquets.” 

“You could buy out the theater for a few nights to make it open to the public, Father,” Evan suggested. “Hold a lottery, or first come-first serve access for anyone who wants a free ticket?” 

“Now there’s an idea,” mused Suri. “I’ll see about asking Baba the same thing.” They held up their arms as if to frame Dorothea with them. “Everyone deserves the chance to see this gorgeous diva perform!” 

Daphne kicked at them under the table “That’s Ma’s line, you weirdo.” 

“Will you sing us another excerpt, Aunt Dorothea?” 

“Oh no, dear, I won’t spoil anything else!” 

The queen gave the assembled group at the table a winning smirk bright enough for a space three times the size of the hall. “You’ll just have to come see it for yourself!”

\---

It was after midnight, and the droning noise of conversation in the hall was starting to grate at Evan’s ears, threatening another headache. Unlike the celebrations at the castle in Fhirdiad, there was no official end to the party at the northern manor. Some families would drift out here and there, taking the younger children off to bed, but the majority of the adults, especially his parent’s school friends, remained in the dining hall drinking and catching up with each other. 

Evan and his friends eventually grew tired of nodding along and chatting with the adults, telling them their activities after graduation for the umpteenth time and listening to them swap endless stories with their parents. 

Once the twins, who were the next oldest children left behind them, decided to retire for the night, Daphne immediately swiped a few leftover bottles of wine from a table and tucked them under her wrap. Her, Anya, Suri, and Evan ducked out to head up a well-worn series of staircases, stepping lightly to stay quiet on the ancient stone, to find their favored spot on the manor roof. 

He rolled his cape up to place it under his head and shoulders, leaning back on the makeshift pillow to look at the clear night sky. The stars winked back at him through the inky black, calmer than the enchanted light globes and candlelight of the castle. He closed his eyes briefly to bathe in cool blue-tinted light instead of the interior’s red and orange, feeling the slight vibrations of residual noise and alcohol throb through his skull. 

Anya hiked her skirts up to prop her legs on top of Evan’s, making herself comfortable in her usual position with her head in Suri’s lap. They moved to shift her braids out from behind her head so they wouldn’t get crushed and brushed a stray hair off of the line of her cheek gently with a thumb, joining Evan in staring up at the sky. 

“You know, I never got used to the shift in constellations in Fódlan compared to home,” they commented. “It’s one of the more subtle changes, but it always feelspresent, like...a parallel universe, I guess. I spent three years at Garreg Mach and the feeling never went away.” 

“You’re right,” Daphne said from her place next to them, laying spread-eagle on the stone with her heeled boots unlaced and kicked off by her side. She passed over the rolled paper with Almyran herbs that Suri had produced from one of their many hidden pockets and started to pry one of the wine bottles open with her knife. “There’s something different about seeing them over land as compared to the sea too, I think. It’s probably the reflection in the water. The fact that I had to learn new legends to go with them didn’t help.” 

“Hey, remember that time on our way to Varley territory our third year when Evan told that story about the Hunter and Lion’s Ghost constellation that scared the shit out of Professor Lysithea?” 

“Wasn’t that the same mission that you let Freddie Gloucester pierce your eyebrow, Suri?” 

“Ugh, don’t remind me, the knights made me take it out and piercing it again later hurt like a _bitch_.”

“Come on, a little scar tissue can be hot,” Anya teased.

Suri tilted their head down to scowl at her. “Not on my fucking eyebrow, Anya!” 

They held out the joint for Evan to light. “Unless that’s what you’re into? In which case, my eyebrows are the most scarred ones you’ll ever see, babe, really more scar than eyebrow at this point, I just draw them on with a quill in the mornings, here, touch them, you’ll see.” 

Anya laughed, reaching up to flick their piercing and made grabby hands at Suri for the joint. They quickly took a drag and held it up above her head. 

“Nope, you don’t get this for free; I worked so hard to sneak this out of Baba’s stash, what will you give me for it?”

“Asshole,” Anya groaned, pinching their calf. 

“My standard rate of payment is kisses, but I’ll accept gold or diplomatic favors if you’re convincing enough.” 

“You didn’t make Daphne kiss you!” 

“ _Daphne_ was my lesbian fairy godmother and got me a date with that hot blacksmith last year, so she’s off the hook.” 

Evan turned his head to the part of Suri that he could reach from his reclined position, and pressed a quick kiss to their side. 

“There you go, your highness, pass it here,” he said, chuckling at Anya’s blatant offended expression illuminated by the moonlight. 

She glowered at both of them as Suri passed the joint to Evan with a pleased flourish. “Fine, then I’ll get you dates with _two_ blacksmiths next time you come to our territory, how about that?” 

“Bullshit!” Daphne exclaimed from Suri’s opposite side. “You only have one blacksmith our age at the keep and you hooked up with her two years ago.”

“Goddess, Ahn, anotherapprentice?” Suri said, keeping a light teasing tone, but Evan could see the slightest tense of their spine at his friend’s words. “At this point you won’t be able to hire even a halfway decent staff by the time your dads leave you in charge!” 

“Hey, it gets me first dibs at weapon repairs and horseshoes, among...other things.” Anya managed to snatch the joint from Evan’s hand as he was preoccupied watching Suri’s internal struggle. “Besides,” she said, blowing out a line of smoke into the crisp autumn air. “I’m very good at getting what I want, and there’s nothing wrong with having a little fun while I’m at it.” 

Evan saw Suri let out a practiced slow breath up towards the constellations as they returned their hand to adjust Anya’s braids. 

“I know you are, Anya.” 

“Oh, I almost forgot!” Still lying down, Anya rummaged with one hand in her voluminous skirt, searching for its pockets. She gave a small cry of triumph and pulled out a tiny box, about the size of a pack of playing cards, composed of complex multicolored slats of wood woven together. Evan caught it when she tossed it over to him. “It’s a puzzle box,” she said, “I know you like that stuff, figured it would keep you busy, and it might be a good place to stash something secret.” 

She wiggled her fingers conspiratorially at him. “Happy birthday!”

He poked one of the pieces at the top of the box experimentally. It shifted, but bumped into another piece, which would have to be moved, which would then be blocked by another one, and so on. “Oh, this is great!” 

It gave his hands something to do, so he laid back with the box, fiddling with the moving parts, mentally calculating their options and memorizing the pieces by their feel. His friends continued to softly chat and smoke and tease each other as his concentration narrowed on solving the complex little puzzle. Finally, he moved one last piece, and the lid popped off. A small interior lined in blue fabric awaited him.

“It’s empty!” 

“Well yeah,” Anya laughed, “The box is the present itself, it’s up to you to decide what to put in it!” 

“Sounds like what a cheapskate would say, to me.” 

“Well, I couldn’t just give you two presents, that would be showing everyone else up, and it wouldn’t be fair.” 

Evan reached for her hand, the closest one he could grab without sitting up, and squeezed it. “It’s great. Really. Thanks, guys, for everything tonight. I have to say, though, I’m going to be very happy when the attention is finally off me for a while.” 

“My eighteenth birthday wasn’t nearly as intense as this,” Daphne said, waving a general hand in the air as if to indicate the sheer bulk of Fódlan’s enthusiasm. “There was just a festival for a day, and then life went back to normal.” 

“Not for me,” Anya groaned. “My hangover from that stuck around for the entire trip home. Curse your country’s delicious fruity drinks.” 

Suri took the puzzle box from Evan to examine it, touching the pieces at the top as they responded. “Fódlan’s been under a lot of stress, really, always, and these things are how they release about ten years’ worth of tension at a time. _Especially_ here up north in Repression City.” 

“I’m very aware, and truly, I’m happy that I get to provide an occasion for people to celebrate,” Evan said, before rubbing his fingers along his temples, sighing. “It’s just unfortunate that it comes at the expense of me being exhausted for a full two months. I think I’ll move permanently into the library for a while after this and just refuse to speak for a while. I’ll say it’s a vow of silence for the Goddess, or whatever.”

“Well, Suri’s birthday is up next, and man, what _are_ they going to do with all the attention?” 

“Keep talking like that, Daph, and I’ll ban you from the celebratory tournaments.” 

Suri was digging around in their discarded coat, searching through the numerous interior pockets. They pulled out a few matchbooks, a travel quill, and a tiny stoppered blue vial, dumping them on a protesting Anya’s lap, before retrieving another rolled joint. They placed it gently in Evan’s new box, before sliding the mechanisms shut and passing it back to him. “There. Now you’ve got something worth protecting.” 

He accepted it, resting it on his stomach carefully. “Something worth protecting that will fit in this box, at least.” 

“Well!” Anya exclaimed, holding her arms up and out from her position in Suri’s lap like she was attempting to hug the entire night sky, “Let me know what other things you want to protect, and I’ll see what I can get my hands on.” 

Evan looked at his friends, at the estate they were perched on, and at the dome of stars that covered them all. 

“There isn’t a puzzle box in the world that’s big enough.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Thanks for reading! This AU was born from a passing headcanon about the future, but, like Audrey II or the Monster Blood from Goosebumps, it just kept growing exponentially the more I indulged it.  
> I really enjoyed creating the four main kids and expanding on their relationships with each other and to their parents! I also tried very hard to walk the line of figuring out how to convey the main cast’s key character traits (but what they would be like twenty years later after lots of therapy and leadership experience/parenthood). I hope it came across well.
> 
> Comments and reviews are always welcome. The next chapter should be up soon!
> 
> Okay, some passing notes to end this:  
> -The International Four is the literal interpretation of the “my friend group is LGBT” “what, all at once?” meme.  
> -“Yolk in the egg,” the Srengi saying Anya quotes, is a bastardized version of a Norwegian idiom (Which I only know from my brother being very into proving we had Norwegian heritage one time. We do not.)  
> -Daphne is an Aries and Evan is a Virgo, and they are both 18, Suri is a Gemini and Anya is a Leo, and they are both 17 (side note, Sylvain is also a Gemini and Claude is a Leo which I think is amazing and fits so well).


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A shorter interlude at the training grounds! Anya is thirsty. Daphne has a trick up her sleeve. Felix is fed up.

The day after the party was thankfully much more subdued, with many of the visitors bidding the others farewell over a communal breakfast before leaving to manage their assorted territories and responsibilities. 

Caroline looked positively distraught at Giselle having to leave so soon, making her fathers promise multiple times over to visit Ignatz, Maya, and Raphael’s inn soon and swearing to write to the other girl once a week. Lorenz and Ferdinand seemed to be sharing an extended tea service, animatedly chatting as Leonie propped her chin up on her palm next to them, eyes drooping from her hangover. Dorothea and Petra each held one of Sylvain and Ingrid’s arms, dragging them off to the nearby town to shop and socialize.

His father had appeared that morning sporting a few new bite marks and bruises on his neck (that Suri’s dad smugly wore as well in very similar spots). Evan could see Mercedes amusedly heal one with the touch of a finger as the king gave her and Annette twin strong embraces before they left the manor, planning on taking a short trip to several nearby charities together before heading to their respective teaching positions. Mercedes had given Evan and his friends each a hug as well before she left. She made them all agree to stop by if they were near the monastery any time in the future for tea and cake. 

Finally, after the trickle of goodbyes and handshakes and hugs ended, only his three friends and their families remained on the estate, drifting off to different areas for their own relaxation. Suri and Evan chose to stay in the now-empty dining hall. Ever the workaholic, his friend was on their fourth cup of coffee, scribbling notes on a linguistics map of the continent in their strange phonetic alphabet shorthand. Evan was contentedly reading a book in the blessed silence, wearing the light new boots that Daphne had gifted him the day before, thin calfskin things from Brigid that almost molded around each toe.

After some time, Evan’s mother passed through the hall. She looked much more comfortable without her finery, instead in the shorts, practical boots, and sleeved cape that Hilda termed “mercenary chic.” Her favorite fishing pole was leaning against her shoulder, and she had a small tackle box propped up against her side. 

“Mother,” Evan called, “do you know where everyone has gone off to?” 

She tilted her head in thought. Her hair fell back, revealing a few small bruises of her own along the side of her neck. Evan determinedly pretended not to notice. 

“I saw your dad and Claude take off on his wyvern about an hour ago to go who knows where, so we shouldn’t expect them back for a while. I never know why they continue to take the wyvern out when he visits, considering one of them always returns having a hard time sitting down-” 

“Mom!” Evan hissed, squeezing his eyes shut in a grimace. “I told you I don’t need to hear about that!” 

Suri cracked up at his reaction like they did every time, much more used to the more explicit references to their parents’ uncommon relationship. “Listen, babe, you think that’s bad, you should hear what Baba tells Mom about it whenever we get back home from these trips; one time he even drew _pictures_ at the _dinner table_ to elaborate.” 

“You know, I remember those.” Evan’s mother dropped all regal pretense whenever she smirked like that. “As I recall, he mailed us a copy of those drawings through a very...discrete courier later that week.” 

Evan threw his hands into the air, looking up to the sky and the goddess. “Sothis, I beseech you, just take me in death now, I’d renounce the throne to be struck by lightning and not have to hear another word of this.” He thought he heard his mother mutter _“she’d think it’s funny, too”_ under her breath, but he ignored it.

“Anyway, I know that Mischa, Daphne, and Felix should be in the training yard if you want to stop by.” She turned her calculating gaze on Suri. “I believe that Anya said something about wanting to head there as well.” 

Suri laid down their pen quickly. “You know, I wouldn’t mind getting in a bit of training either, I’ll take any sword practice with Duke Fraldarius that I can get.” 

“Also,” they added, “I probably could do with some moving around to warm up in your damned icebox of a country. Ev, are you coming with?” 

Evan sighed, knowing that he wasn’t going to be able to talk his way out of witnessing them in the complicated “strictly platonic” dance that they were likely about to spend the next few hours performing with Anya. “As long as you don’t swap out Daphne’s arrows for poisoned ones again, Suri.” 

“ _First_ of all, no one ever proved that was me. Second of all, it got you to practice your Restore that you were having problems with, didn’t it? I’d say that it had a net positive result, honestly.” 

Evan’s mother gave a small nod, looking thoughtful. “An interesting strategy. Sounds like a decent practical learning experience.” 

He rolled his eyes. “You can’t both gang up like that on me, you know that? Fine, I’ll join you. But I’m bringing my book, and only healing you if someone nicks an artery or something.”

“Works for me!” 

Suri leapt up from their chair, leaving their half-drunk coffee on the table, and grabbed Evan’s hand. “That might actually be necessary, Prince Peaceful, I bet you first dibs on dessert tonight that I can get Anya to pick up a lance.” 

With that, they eagerly dragged the crown prince out of the hall and into the bright midday sun, crunching through thick piles of multicolored leaves across the grounds. Byleth watched them go, as familiar memories rose to the surface of her mind. She smiled faintly, re-shouldered her fishing rod, and headed out onto the estate’s fields towards the lake. 

\---

Despite who her fathers were, Anya wasn’t much of a fan of training. 

However, that morning, she was not surprised to find that her day would begin with herself accompanying Daphne to the estate’s small sparring area, toting along a bag of snacks, waterskins, and her spellbook along with the Brigid princess’s extra quiver. She was also not surprised for her dad to join them as they exited the main hall. Her friend raised a hand in greeting. “It’s a pretty late start for you, Duke Fraldarius, are you feeling well? Or did the Margrave have to chain you to the floor until you had breakfast?” 

“Oh no, they didn’t bring the chains this time, you would know if they did, you can hear it down the-” 

Anya grinned as her dad scrubbed a hand over his face in resigned exasperation. She held up her hands. “Kidding! I’m kidding!” 

Her dad huffed out a breath, shaking his head as he began pulling his hair back and rolling up his shirtsleeves. “You’re the singular cause of my grey hair, Anya, I swear.” 

She threw an arm around his shoulders fondly, having surpassed his height easily after sprouting like a weed in her fourteenth year. “Sorry, Dad. Good thing Pa likes the silver fox look, though, right?” 

“Just for that, you’re doing lance work today.” 

“What? No! I’m just here for-” she gestured to her pack of food and books, “-moral and emotional support!” 

“You can _emotionally support_ practicing your lance work against Mischa, then.” 

Anya muttered a curse as they stepped into the training area, Daphne shaking with suppressed laughter next to her.

Mischa, unsurprisingly, had beat them all to the training center, and was in the middle of a pull-up routine. Having known her since her birth, Anya could still see the similarities between Mischa and her twin: both had the same light blonde hair, teal eyes, and skin paler than even Anya’s that reddened easily, although rarely. (Both of Evan’s sisters were notoriously hard to embarrass, not for lack of trying on Anya’s and Suri’s part). But while Addie chose to grow her hair out and exercise her mind and sharp tongue through magic and court politics, Mischa kept hers cropped shorter, often pulled back, and spent her time building a solid layer of thick toned muscle and avoiding any social interaction that wasn’t entirely necessary. The girls were both due to start at the Officer’s Academy that fall, and Anya was slightly disappointed that she would miss seeing the impact of not one, but two stubborn Blaiddyd children and the effects they would have on their poor professors whose only experience so far with that generation of the family was the polite, studious Evan, who adamantly chose to focus on healing, not offensive magic. 

She heard, rather than saw Evan and Suri enter the training grounds, and turned to wave at them from the benches. 

“Good morning, gorgeous!” Suri exclaimed, sliding onto the seat next to her. “What brings a delicate noble lady like you to such a brutish place like this?” 

Well. Even that early in the day, two could play at that game. Anya placed a hand on her heart, fluttering her eyelashes in a way that she knew had left quite a few former dates weak in the knees.“Oh your highness, it is of course to find myself a suitable spouse! I need someone to protect my fragile constitution and defend me from any _dastardly_ foreign swordmasters.” 

“That sounds like quite the threat indeed, my lady. Aren’t you lucky to have such fine options here before you?” Suri swept an arm across the sparse grounds. 

“Pass,” Mischa said blithely, now starting a series of stretches. 

“Not my type,” Daphne shouted from behind an archery target she was carrying. Anya pretended to gasp.

They turned to Evan, who shook his head balefully. “I couldn’t handle you, my friend.” He gave them a deep bow, smirking (Anya broke her proper charade to stick out her tongue at him for that) and walked off to check up on his sister across the yard. 

Suri was always good at knowing when to drop a joke, so they did then, bumping Anya’s knee with theirs in a much more casual gesture. “So, did Daphne drag you along, or are you really here to train on your vacation?” They rolled their neck back and to the side, causing it to make a series of hideous, but familiar crunching noises that indicated too much time stuck bent over whatever work managed to keep their attention for more than a day. 

“Ugh, I wasn’t planning on training today, but Dad will probably drag me up at some point. I’m trying to be as inconspicuous as possible and slip out when he’s distracted.” 

“I don’t think you’ve ever managed to be inconspicuous in your life, Ahn.” 

She arched an eyebrow at them. 

“Not that that’s bad!” Suri corrected hastily. “It’s just very hard to take one’s eyes off of you.” 

Occasionally, although it seemed to be happening more and more as of late, Anya’s world would slow down whenever Suri looked at her a certain way. She was never one to shy away from eye contact, quite the opposite actually, but there was something about Suri’s enveloping light pink gaze that made her feel like she was drowning if she met it for too long. 

The moment, as it always did, broke with the grace and suddenness of a soap bubble. She scrambled through her brain to remember their previous topic of conversation. 

“What about you?” She finally asked. “Are you training?” 

They gave a short sigh. “I probably should. It seems like it’s all I’ve been doing back home for the past season, but Baba is sending me out on a campaign to meet with each province leader in a couple months, and, well, you know Almyra, they’ll expect me to spar with them or their captains to prove my worth.” 

“Just a couple months, huh? That seems rather sudden.” 

“I mean, not really, I always knew that this had to happen before my birthday, so the timetable was pretty set. Time flies when you’re getting the shit kicked out of you daily by your palace guards though, I guess.” 

They rubbed the back of their neck, tugging at pieces of hair that had started growing out. It was getting long, not shaggy or unkempt by any means, but longer than Anya had ever seen it. She felt a small pang in her chest. If Suri had changed this much in six months, what would it be like when the two of them were spending extended periods of time apart after they inherited their respective titles? Her dads had spent nearly four years apart during the war before they reunited and got together, but it had nearly destroyed their relationship. Was that going to happen to them?

She tried to smile through the concern at them, hoping that it was reassuring enough. “Hey, I’m sure you’ll make a great impression. You’ve been working up to this for years, and you’ve jumped through every hoop so far. Don’t freak out too much. I’m sure Dad would be happy to work on some stuff with you, if you ask nicely.” 

“Yeah. I guess that’s the plan for today.” They smiled back at her, but it was a smaller one than normal, their lips pressed together with the slightest tension at the corners of their mouth. “Every month after graduation just seems like it’s sped by and dropped another load of pressure off on its way. I just feel...wrong for being nervous about this? Or silly? I mean, our folks fought a _war_ at our age, and here I am worrying about a little diplomacy.”

Anya knew what they meant; the same apprehension had plagued her ever since she turned fifteen and her leadership preparation had begun in earnest. “We may not be fighting a war, but we’re trying to keep any others from happening. I think that’s a valid thing to be a little stressed about, don’t you?” 

They nodded, but it was automatic, seemingly still stuck in their head.

“Really, Suri. You’ll be okay. I mean, it’ll suck that I won’t see you for a while, but that’s what the next birthday is for.” She placed her hand on top of theirs, resting on their knee. Emboldened a little from her own motivation, she made the choice to rub her thumb gently against theirs. “You’ll write to me, though, right?” 

The tension melted from their smile, leaving a genuine one that made her thankful to be sitting instead of standing so her legs didn’t give her away by buckling under the direct beam.

“Of course I will! I’ll write to you every day, if that’s what you want. I’ll even send you a present from every province I go to.” 

“Oh dear, Hanna and Caroline would go mad with jealousy if I got seven different presents in the mail, and they didn’t get any.” 

“I’ll send them presents too! What kind of Shahzadeh would I be if I didn’t use my influence to send three of Fódlan’s prettiest nobles gifts?” Their usual enthusiasm was returning, a summer drizzle turning into a full-on deluge. 

Anya laughed, bright and loud in the clear morning. “I’ll be expecting great things, then.”

“For you? The greatest. I’ll answer any letter you send me and more.” 

They hopped up from the bench, confidence pasted back on their body as if it had never left. 

“Hey, Duke Fraldarius, want to spar?”

Anya looked up to notice her dad’s eyes had been on them already, but she had no idea how much he’d seen. He gave Suri a curt nod. 

“Von Riegan, good to see you, have you been keeping up with your training since graduation?” 

Suri nodded enthusiastically at Anya’s father, moving towards the weapons rack. “Absolutely, sir. The guards in Almyra are great practice, even if I still get my ass kicked by them half the time.”

“A true mighty warrior!” Daphne heckled from her position across the yard, yanking her arrows out of the bullseye of a target. 

Suri chucked a discarded broken pommel in her direction. It bounced harmlessly off of the target’s legs. “You’ve fought Almyran soldiers, Daph, they’re indestructible!” 

Anya’s dad placed the training sword that he was holding back onto the rack, reaching for the rapier at his side. He turned to Suri and raised an eyebrow. “Feel up to using live steel today, kid?”

They brushed their hand through their hair, curls parting through their fingers and flopping exactly back into place. Anya suddenly felt an urge to dig her fingers into it and tug on that softer streak of pink until they were melting against her more than anything else in the moment. 

Suri grinned, reaching for a saber of their own. “Sure, we’ve got a healer here-”

Evan turned his head from where he had moved in to sit next to Anya. “Don’t make me waste a spell on you, von Riegan!” 

“-it should be fine.” 

The sword was snatched out of their hand. “No. Get your dual swords out, it’ll be more interesting.” 

Suri’s face lit up. “Oh, you’re on, old man.” 

They grabbed their set of curved scimitars, ornate brass handles practically molded to their palms, and spun them deftly in each hand before sinking into a low relaxed stance in the Almyran style.

“Don’t provoke him, Suri,” Evan drawled from the benches, casually flipping his book back open to his saved spot. “I might be a pretty good healer, but even I can’t regrow a limb for you if Uncle Felix decides to lop one off.” 

\---

Anya didn’t think she’d ever get tired of watching Suri fight.

Their blades clashed almost too quickly to see who struck who, creating a blur of bronze and silver. Dust flew, kicked up by their boots as her father lunged and dodged and Suri reacted with smooth spins of their own. Even decades into peacetime, Anya’s dad was still one of the most renowned swordsmen on the continent, though as time passed he had to transition from relying on the raw power and dexterity of youth and wartime desperation to the keen mind of a chess player, anticipating his opponent’s moves and efficiently counteracting them. 

Suri was a practiced swordmaster; they had completed the certification quickly in school and graduated with the blessing of high praise from Byleth (no longer an official professor, but a respected figure still at the monastery). They didn’t break out their scimitars much at the Academy, as the main exams did not account for them, although the growing trickle of international students over the years had the school considering changing these restrictions. Still, Anya had seen them used to an impressive, deadly effect on missions and in training. One of her favorite memories in Almyra was when Daphne and Claude took to the sky on wyverns and hailed blunted arrows down on them as a dare, forcing Suri to slash each one out of the air in a whirling dervish of steel and smiles. They always had the same damned smile plastered on their face when they fought. It had lodged itself into Anya’s subconscious like a stubborn splinter over the years, digging itself deeper the more she tried to rip it out. 

All this to say, it was unsurprising that Suri was holding their own in the fight. When her father would lunge in for a strike, a scimitar would rise to parry it out of the way, the other swinging in towards an unprotected side, which her dad would then dodge away from and strike again, and the dance would continue. Both were beginning to collect a slight sheen of sweat as they clashed back and forth. Occasionally one of their Crests would flare up, the blue light of the Goneril or Fraldarius sigils flashing across the cut of Suri’s damp cheekbones. Mischa and Daphne had abandoned their weapons to watch, heads bowed towards each other in running commentary of the face-off. Even Evan at some point had laid down his book to try and follow the spectacle.

The lines of Suri’s body were as graceful and lean as any dancer’s ( _wouldn’t they look great in battle dancer’s silks?_ her traitorous mind provided), and Anya could see the muscles in their shoulders tense and flex as they blocked a particularly intense jab. Some of their curls began sticking to the sides of their face with sweat. 

On her left, she vaguely noticed Evan shooting a sideways look at her, and realized that her mouth had fallen open a slight amount. With a start, she snapped it shut so hard that her teeth clacked together, jolting in her seat on the bench. 

Through the continuous clash of blades, she saw Suri’s pink eyes dart towards her after her sudden flinch. She quickly composed herself, matched their gaze coolly, and blew them a kiss in response. 

Their movement suddenly stalled, only for a fraction of a second, but it was enough for Anya’s father to take advantage of the opening, rush in and disarm Suri of one of their scimitars, and point his blade at their chest. Suri averted their eyes away from Anya in a flash. She could see her dad angle himself to follow their eyeline, and then sigh deeply, shaking his head. 

“Good match, kid. Keep practicing and you might just be decent enough to be a mid-range mercenary.”

That was high praise coming from him, and his sparring partner knew it. That and the exertion must have explained why their breathing was unsteady, and why they rushed so quickly to the waterskins on the other side of the ring. 

“Well, that was fun!” 

Daphne sank down onto the benches next to them, dropping her quiver at their feet. She hoisted her bag up to dig through it, and pulled out a few pieces of parchment. “Oh shoot, I forgot, I needed to give this back to Suri.” 

She dropped the papers onto Suri’s folded jacket, where Anya could make out some of the writing on a creased page. It was in Almyran, in small, loopy handwriting. 

_“—I cannot wait until you return to Almyra, as I already find myself missing you. You can continue to help me practice my Fódlan pronunciation, because the last lesson we had together unfortunately cut short due to the fact that you just looked so kissable—”_

She looked up sharply at Daphne, who was nonchalantly re-braiding the line of her hair next to its shaved side. “What is this supposed to be?” 

“Huh? Oh, it’s a letter for Suri, they put it in my bag the other day and forgot about it so I’m returning it. I didn’t think they’d want to lose it.” 

“No- I mean- who is this from?” Anya’s eyes scanned to the end of the letter for the signature. It was signed with a kiss. Ugh. “Who the hell is _Laleh_?” 

“That’s...the captain of the guard’s daughter back in Almyra, right? The girl with the biceps who schooled you last year at brawling?” Evan asked, cocking an eyebrow at Daphne. 

“Yep,” she replied, popping the ‘p.’ She moved to the other side of her head to finish the braid, looking utterly blasé about the whole thing. “Pretty juicy stuff, huh?” 

Anya could feel her heartbeat thunder in her ears, but she shook her head, laughing anyway. “Wow, I didn’t know she was Suri’s type, but good for them, any girl who can bench-press your body weight is hot as hell.” 

The person in question was heading back over from the waterskins, waving at her. She dug her fingernails into her leg. 

“Hey, Anya! Did you enjoy the show? I almost had your old man at the end there, I swear, but you know me, I had to add a little drama just in case things were getting too boring for ya.” 

They went to sit on the bench between her and Evan, the prince scooting out of the way quickly for them, but Anya jumped up suddenly. “Actually, I changed my mind, I do want to do some combat practice.” 

“Oh, great! Well, the floor’s all yours, I’m sure that Mischa-”

“No,” she snapped. “Not Mischa. Let’s spar, von Riegan.” 

She marched straight to the weapons stand and snatched a training lance hard enough to make the whole display rattle. “Unless you don’t think you have the stamina?” 

They looked a bit taken aback, but hopped up from the bench as well. Anya’s father, who was inspecting his rapier, gave them a long, piercing look that felt almost as sharp as the sword itself.

“Uh, sure, why not? You know that my _stamina’s_ unmatched, come on, ask anyone.” 

They winked at her. Anya’s grip tightened on the lance. She felt electricity licking from the depths of her gut into sparks at the tips of her fingers. The tip of the blunted lance began to glow slightly. “Let’s go, then.” 

As the two began to face off, Evan rolled his head over to look at Daphne, who had finished her braid and was casually leaning back with her arms resting on the upper row of benches. She had folded up the parchment and tucked it back into her bag. 

“So, are you going to tell her at any point that the letter was addressed to _you_ , Daphne?”

“You know, Evan, I wasn’t planning on it.” 

Evan sighed, and shook his hands a few times to make sure he had a healing spell prepped. He was probably going to need it. 

\---

Suri’s dad had been right. It _was_ a good thing that they knew how long singed eyebrows took to grow back.

As the teenagers began filing out of the training grounds chatting about lunch, Anya’s hands still fizzing slightly with residual magic, Felix put his arm up to stop Suri from moving to leave with them. 

“Kid. Listen. I’m only going to say this once, so I need you to take this seriously.” 

They looked slightly concerned, but nodded, rubbing absently at the charred black marks on their arms. Felix had extensive experience with Thoron burns. That was definitely going to bruise the next day.

“Have I done something wrong, sir?” 

Felix shook his head. “Not in the way you’re thinking, no.” He tossed Suri a towel, which they immediately pressed their sweaty face into. 

“I think- look, don’t tell my husband that I’m doing this- but you’ve got to go tell her how you feel about her.” 

He could see Suri’s eyebrows raise a small amount, but they kept the towel pressed against their face to hide their expression, before lowering it to reveal a clearly faked grin. 

“Romantic advice, sir? To what do I owe the honor? I think you might be mistaken though, I’m not currently courting anyone, although there’s a couple people back at the palace who have definitely had some lovely-”

“Don’t bullshit me, kid. Your dad could never do it and neither can you. I’m talking about the girl who sent you flying on your ass two minutes ago, and who you’ve obviously been mutually conspiring with to kill Sylvain through your flirting.”

Suri dropped the towel from their face, stammering a little. “Wait...are you talking about Anya? Sir? You know we’re just friends...I mean- I’ve known her for ages- we just like to mess with each other from time to time that’s all, it’s not really-”

“ _Suri von Riegan,”_ Felix snapped. “I like to think that I know my daughter well enough to see that she has feelings for you too, and more than that, well, fucking hell, I went through the exact same shit with Sylvain for ten _years._ I’m not about to sit back and watch you two be hopeless and pine for that long. I might actually go insane if that happens.” 

A moment of silence descended on the grounds. A few chillier gusts of wind stirred up dust and bits of straw on the floor, swirling them around their feet. Suri scuffed the toe of their boot into the ground, then looked up at Felix, all sly pretense and joking smiles wiped clean to reveal a tentative, but hopeful expression. 

“So she- you really think so? Are you serious?” 

Their voice was so much softer than usual, and for once, Felix was reminded just how young they really were, and how precious his crush on Sylvain had felt at that age, like a fragile vase that he had to carry around at all times, shying away from anything that could potentially make it shatter forever. 

He had to clear his throat and blink several times before responding.

“Go talk to her, Suri. You’re a brave kid, and smart with a sword. I give you my blessing. Or-” He waved his hand vaguely around in the air. “-whatever it is that I’m supposed to say in this situation. Just give us all some warning if you do actually end up together so I can keep my husband from skewering you at the dinner table. And, if you hurt her, I’ll run you through myself.” 

With that, he clapped a firm hand on Suri’s shoulder and strode out of the training grounds, leaving them alone in the center of the ring, towel forgotten in their hands, a faint smile growing on their face as the wheels of their brain started to slowly spin again.

\---

“Just to let you know,” Felix said with his head resting on Sylvain’s chest, curled against him in the guest room’s four poster bed that night. “I think Suri is going to ask Anya out for real soon. Just wanted you to be prepared.” 

Sylvain pulled his face up from where it had been buried in Felix’s loose hair. “Now, what gave you the idea that that was going to happen?” 

Felix gave a small shrug, too pinned in by his husband’s arms around him to perform a real one. “Just a hunch, I guess.” 

“...A hunch.” 

“Well, they seemed pretty cozy at the training grounds today, at least.” He conveniently chose not to mention the conversation that happened after.

Sylvain huffed. “Ugh, they’re always throwing themself at her though, Fe, it’s so obnoxious, they can’t be planning on anything-” 

“I knew you were going to say that.” 

“Really though! They’re close, yeah, all of those four are, but you can never tell how sincere they are- honestly I blame Claude and Hilda for that- but they’re obviously not _serious_ about it, not serious about anything, really-”

He was interrupted by dark hair whipping away from his face and a pointing finger replacing it.

“And what exactly were you doing at that age, Gautier? How were you acting around the person you were serious about?” 

“Exactly!” 

Sylvain threw his arms up in the air, breaking his hold on Felix. “I was an absolute idiot at that age, Fe! I threw myself around to anyone who would have me and irritated you and Ingrid until you snapped! I broke your heart back then, so many times, from just my sheer stupidity and selfishness.” 

His face fell a little as he leaned back against the headboard and closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them, Felix could see the righteous indignation that he usually had during mentions of Suri and Anya’s flirting shift to a small worried expression as he stared back at him. 

“I just...I know the pain that insincerity like that can cause. You saw how upset I got the first time Anya skinned her _knee_ when I was playing with her, right? I have no idea what I’d do with myself if she got her heart broken, if there’s anything I could have done something to stop it.” 

Felix felt his own heart ache at that. 

“Hey,” he said, lacing their fingers together. He could still feel the ghosts of their original lance and sword calluses when they touched, smoothed and reforged over time through constant contact like rocks in a swift-moving river. “You’re forgetting something very important about that time.” He squeezed Sylvain’s hand. 

“A lot of my damage came from myself. You know that. I barely knew how to recognize my own feelings, much less communicate them to others, dumbass, so of course I never told you anything that I felt.”

They’d been through reiterations of this conversation before, early in their relationship, when they were still working through the mire of guilt of loss and love and war and pain. They would probably go through versions of it again, over and over until they faded into black together. Felix had long ago accepted this. He knew how much these conversations had affected their raising of their daughters- to encourage them to speak their minds and realize their worth- not as walking Crests or weapons, but as people. They had promised each other from Anya’s first moments in the world to do everything in their power to keep their children from developing versions of their own internal scars that would be pulled tight at inopportune moments for the rest of their life. 

“I closed myself off so much until my default reaction _was_ to snap at you. We both were dealing with our shitty lives in ways that we couldn’t express, much less try to change. Anya’s not like that. None of our kids are. We made sure of that, at least.” 

His husband gave him a wobbly smile, and pulled him close once again. “I just don’t want her to get hurt,” he admitted. 

“Syl, love, today I saw her channel a Thoron into her lance and launch Suri halfway across the training grounds. I think she’ll be alright.” 

Sylvain let out a short bark of laughter at that. “Ha! Goddess, I’m so proud, of course our kid would be a badass little sadist.” 

He kissed the back of their clasped hands, and relaxed back into the mattress. “Fine,” he continued, “I trust Anya to do what’s right for her. And if that means trusting the von Riegan kid too, I guess I can do that for her as well.” 

“We all did a good job with them, didn’t we?” 

“Somehow, despite everything, we managed to, yeah.” 

Felix gave him a gentle kiss that only could come from years of dedicated practice. He rolled over in their bed, and blew the candles out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is shorter than the other two chapters; it’s just how things ended up when I was deciding where to cut things! Up next: we move to Claude and Hilda’s role in the events, which were an absolute goddamn delight to write. 
> 
> A quick note on the my vague conclusions for the kids’ graduating classes:  
> Evan- Holy Knight  
> Daphne- Sniper  
> Suri- Swordmaster  
> Anya- Dark Knight 
> 
> (I know that the Officer’s Academy only really operated for a year in-game, but I think it has transitioned from more of a war-prep ROTC short term thing to a boarding school/collegiate-like environment with classes on diplomacy and geography and economics, alongside battle classes.)
> 
> Chapter three should be up sometime this weekend!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Claude and Hilda decide that if they want something done right, they have to do it themselves. 
> 
> Featuring: return of the italicized flashback, chaotic bi poly power couple Claude and Hilda, unfortunate literary depictions, and confessions- both in the air and on the ground.
> 
> Chapter includes very brief discussion of Claude’s paranoia surrounding his childhood assassination attempts.

“You haven’t taken Arash out since we got here.” Claude’s greeting to his child in the hazy light of the next morning was brief and without preamble. “The Fódlan stablehands never know how to handle wyverns correctly, either. Let’s go give him a little exercise.” 

Suri’s glare over their second cup of coffee was as dark as the contents of their mug. “The sun is barely up.”

“Best time to ride, I always say,” he cheerily replied. “Air’s the clearest.” 

“I thought we were on _vacation.”_

Claude shrugged, nonchalant. “If you want him to buck you the entire flight back to Almyra because he hasn’t been ridden properly in a week, be my guest.” 

Suri put down their cup. “Baba, if you wanted to spend time with me, you could just ask.” 

That was an interesting twist, but not one that Claude couldn’t pivot to catch. He let his eyes drop a bit, lessened his shoulders by a degree, and sighed. “That obvious, huh?” 

They looked up sharply, pleased to have “caught” him in a lie. Not for the first time, part of him screamed to lecture them on the finer points of falsehoods and facial cues, but he stopped himself. Suri was charismatic, and as wily a bullshitter as they came, but they didn’t see the world through the same hardened paranoia as Claude had unfortunately had to adapt to, and he was hesitant to introduce any level of that threat-built scrutiny into his child, who had only known peacetime and an accepted place in court. 

_He was pacing again: from one side of the royal chambers to the other, from Hilda’s messy mirrored dresser to the balcony doors, in a pattern so familiar that his wife threatened to put rugs down to keep him from wearing a groove in the stone floors._

_“They don’t need to learn it, it’s not necessary, there hasn’t been a single threat on their life since they were born.”_

_He flipped around to walk in the other direction._

_“But there always_ could _be a threat, just because the majority of the country thinks they’re an acceptable Shahzadeh doesn’t mean someone won’t try and take matters into their own hands.”_

_He turned on his heel to change directions again._

_“But they’ll have guards and knights around them almost always, people dedicated to protecting them.”_

_Another turn._

_“Guards can be disposed of all the time.”_

_Another turn._

_“But you don’t want them to start seeing the entire world as a threat, because paranoia fucks you up and makes it hard to trust anyone.”_

_Another turn._

_“But if they die because they missed something that you could have taught them it will be your fau-”_

_“Alright! That’s enough!”_

_Hilda sat up in their bed, arms crossed._

_“You’re spiraling again, Khalid.”_

_She leaned back on their eclectic collection of pillows that seemed to be growing every year, as he was usually outvoted on palace decorating decisions by her and Marianne due to a (in Claude’s opinion) massively unfair advantage on their side._

_“I know this is how you work through things, but we stop when you start talking about our kid dying for no reason. That’s the rule.”_

_His feet stilled on the smooth granite of the floor. Claude let out a deep shuddering breath, and rubbed his eyes a few times with his hands. “Yeah. You’re right. Thanks for pulling me back, babe.”_

_Hilda uncrossed her arms and patted the side of the bed next to her. He sank into it without any semblance of grace, pressing his face into an embroidered cushion._

_“What brought it on this time?” She asked. She began to run her fingers through his hair, scratching behind his ears so very much like one of the old monastery’s cats. He almost would have been offended if it didn’t feel so heavenly._

_“They asked me why they couldn’t have any of my tea at breakfast this morning.”_

_Hilda wrinkled her nose. “Your poison cocktail?”_

_She wasn’t wrong. Claude had been giving himself a low dose of various paralytics and poisons once a month to keep up a tolerance to them since his tenth birthday. Eventually, he had devised a way to pack them all into a single carefully measured cup of brewed tea, far preferable than knocking back the contents of several vials and praying that he would at least pass out on his back instead of face-first._

_“Yeah. And I couldn’t think of a good way to tell them that it’s something I have to do just because my fucking half-siblings tried to take me out with belladonna four times in less than a year when I was eleven.”_

_“Ugh, they were always so uninspired.”_

_“You only were around for the tail end of the death attempts, Hil,” Claude said, twisting around to lay on his back. “At least, the death attempts related to Almyra.”_

_“If it was the tail end, they should’ve at least learned by then that releasing a snake into your bathing chambers just meant that you’d have a new scaly friend to bother me with for the next month.”_

_“I’m still not forgiving you for getting rid of Lorenz Jr.”_

_“He was scaring the maids, you dolt.” She rolled her eyes at him. “So, are you going to do it?”_

_“What, teach Suri about poisons?”_

_“Yeah, silly. Do you think it’s a good idea?”_

_Claude threw an arm across his face, covering his eyes. “I really don’t know. I don’t want them to panic that everything they eat or drink could be poisoned. I lost so much weight the year before I came to Fódlan because I barely ate in the palace.”_

_Hilda pursed her lips. “Frame it as chemistry lessons, then. Focus on medicines alongside poison identification. Byleth said that Evan’s been really interested in medicine lately, right? Maybe they’ll be the same.”_

_He frowned. “And what if someone decides to try and take them out in the meantime?”_

_“Make them some general antidotes and have them carry a bottle at all times, like you do. Goddess knows they put enough other random shit in their pockets, they shouldn’t object to another thing.”_

_“But what if the poison isn’t covered by a general antidote? I can name three off the top of my head that require specialized brews, and-”_

_She clamped her hand firmly over his mouth. “Uh-uh. You’re spiraling again.” He let out a small_ mmph _against her palm in protest._

_“Khalid, Claude, my darling, ridiculous hunk of a lover,” Hilda tugged his hair to pull him closer to her, then gave it a playful ruffle, locking him in the iron grip of her arms. “Just because_ you _grew up in a world that was always threatening to kill you, and_ you _were smart and clever enough to dodge it does not mean our kid has to do the same.” She ran a finger fondly along the right side of his cheek, brushing the beard that had replaced the braid of his youth._

_“Every single thing you did to protect yourself helped bring you to the moment where you were able to protect the world- the world that you knew existed under the sharp, deadly exterior you had known.The one that you and the Professor and Dima nurtured-”_

_“And you too,” Claude said, kissing his wife on the nose. Hilda giggled._

_“I didn’t do any of the seriously heavy lifting though! Don’t make me lose my train of thought!”_

_She flicked him on the forehead before continuing, “-that you and the Professor and Dima and, okay, all_ _of us tugged out of the battlefields. We made a world for Suri, for Evan, for all of our kids, that was peaceful. That was full of possibilities, and yeah, even love, corny as it sounds.”_

_“It absolutely does sound corny, you’re right.”_

_“Oh, hush. You’re one to talk.” She smiled. “So be proud of that, okay? And teach them how to add to that structure we began building. And if it happens that they inherit their father’s passion for...unconventional chemistry, well, you can enjoy a common interest together. Personally, I hope they like making shiny expensive things with their mother.”_

_Claude’s breathing evened out as he melted back against the sheets and to stare up into her eyes. “Where would I be without you, Hilda?”_

_She beamed, then rolled over to straddle him. “Fuck hypotheticals. The question should be, where do you want to be right now?”_

_Claude grinned back at her._

_“I have a few places in mind, Your Queenliness.”_

The dining hall was near-silent save for the echoing of kitchen clatter from the adjoining rooms, and the ambient noise of ceiling timbers shifting from the elements outdoors. Claude kept up his charade for the time being. He didn’t usually enjoy lying to his kid, but he was on a very important mission, and the clock was ticking. Some sacrifices had to be made for the greater good. 

“I just haven’t seen much of you since we arrived, and it’s going to be quite some time before we’re in the country again together, I guess it all just kind of got to me a bit. I should have gotten used to it when you were at the Academy, but...well, you’re growing so fast. I want to make sure we have time together.” _Unlike me and my old man,_ his mind unhelpfully provided. His father had loved him, sure, but ‘quality time’ was nowhere near the top of his list of priorities when it came to child rearing. It might not even have been on the list at all.

He must have let more emotion than he intended bleed through his expression, because Suri’s eyes had softened as they searched his face. They nodded at him, closing the novel they were reading- Bernadetta’s new one, Claude noticed- and knocked the last of their coffee back like a shot. 

“Yeah, okay, Baba,” they said. “I understand. I’m sorry about not being around much yesterday but in my defense,” they waved their arms, still splashed with black char marks, in front of them and wiggled their hands, “I was kind of dealing with something.” 

“I noticed,” Claude said dryly. He jerked a thumb back at the novel as they began the walk to the wyvern stables. “So how’s Bernie’s latest creation? Does it say anything juicy about a very handsome and cunning Duke?” 

Suri gave a terrifying smirk. “There’s a very...intimate scene on page 127 that was certainly enlightening, to say the least.” 

“Oh gods. _What_ did Hilda tell Bernie.” 

Suri told him. 

On the highest floor of the estate, in the royal bedchamber, Dimitri sat up in bed so hard that he smacked his head on one of the lower hanging wood carvings of the canopy, jolted awake by the unmistakable sound of Claude’s shouted curse in the courtyard below. He rushed to unlatch the window, eventually ripping the metal lock off in frustration to throw open the panes. 

The scene he found below him was not the one he had feared, not a gruesome attack or assassination at all. Instead, he looked out on the simple sight of a very peeved Claude von Riegan, pacing back and forth with his hands on his head yelling something about books and personal privacy, while his child roared with laughter behind him. 

“Dimitri?” Byleth’s voice came from the bed, rusty from sleep, but concerned. “Is everything alright with Claude?” 

Dimitri eased the window shut again, watching the panes flap against each other from their missing lock, and winced a bit at the scrape of glass against glass. Ingrid probably wouldn’t be happy to hear about him ignoring such a drastic safety infraction, but, well, there weren’t many threats that he or the woman grumpily pressing down her bedhead behind them couldn’t handle, even in their sleepwear. He turned back to his wife, amused. “He’s fine, dear. It seems as if he has just read Bernadetta’s new book.” 

Byleth nodded sagely, understanding in her eyes. “Ah. Page 127.” 

“Page 127, indeed.” 

\---

Claude waited until they were both in the air flying away from the grounds to strike.

“How are the saddle adjustments? Everything fit fine?” 

Suri looked down at their mount, swinging their legs experimentally. “It feels fine to me.” 

“Do the stirrup locks work alright?” 

He watched them click the locking mechanism that would hold the lower half of their legs in case of emergency. They usually didn’t use these, as a rolling jump and dismount were often preferable in battle than being shackled to a crashing wyvern, but for long flights at high altitudes, they were necessary. Suri tapped their feet a few times against Arash’s thick hide, who slowed down at the impromptu signal. 

“They seem to work okay, yeah.” 

“Not too tight? Don’t want them to cut off any circulation.” 

“ _No,_ they’re fine, gods, chill out, I know what I’m doing.” Suri rolled their eyes. 

Claude broke his (excellent) poker face to reveal a wide grin. “Perfect.” 

In a flash, while Suri’s eyes were even higher skyward in annoyance, Claude reached for his ever-present boot knife, leaned over Jasmine’s wing, and gave a precise cut through a strap of their saddle, toppling them over the side of their mount with a sharp yell and curse in Almyran. The stirrup locks tightened, leaving them frozen, suspended upside-down and thrashing under Arash’s belly. 

“What the absolute _fuck,_ Baba??” 

He put his hands on his hips. “After all the hard work that your mother and I have been putting in behind the scenes to help you win Anya’s heart, you have the audacity to start dating someone else and not tell us?” 

“I- this is so much to process right now.” Suri’s hair was wild, gravity pulling it away from their head towards the ground. They struggled to keep their vest, which had been left unbuttoned, from slipping off of their torso while still keeping an arm free to cling to the saddle. “Wait, what do you mean you and Mom have been working to help me with Anya? What do you mean, I’ve broken it? I’m not dating anyone else!” 

They began to blindly grope for the return cord that would allow them to re-right the saddle. Claude knew that was a lost cause; it had been the one he had cut, after all. He nudged Jasmine in lower, grabbed the back of Suri’s shirt, and pulled them up to a sitting position, their wyverns allowing the transfer over one another with ease. Once upright, his child gave him an annoyed glare as they quickly unbuckled their harness. 

“So,” Claude said, “you aren’t seeing anyone else and you’re in love with Anya.” 

“I’m not seeing anyone else and...and...I...Anya.”

“Oh come on,” Claude said, a note of frustration edging in. “We’ve seen the way you look at her.” 

Suri threw their hands up in the air, forgetting for a second that their saddle technically no longer was stable. “Okay! Fine! Yes! I love her!” Their saddle wobbled a little underneath them, and they shot their hands back down to clutch at their wyvern’s spines. “Shit!” 

“Thank the gods,” Claude groaned. “Took you long enough.” 

“Has it really been that obvious?”

“Please,” he scoffed. “You’ve practically been slipping in a puddle of your own drool every time she’s walked into a room since you were eight.” He wheeled Jasmine around so she was facing them head-on. She began bumping Arash in the head with her snout playfully. “Why, when did you figure it out? Don’t say ‘just now’ either.”

Suri sighed. They slumped forward in their saddle, laying their chest on Arash’s neck and wrapping their arms around it like they used to as a child. If Claude squinted, he could see a toddler version of Suri clad in colorful linen pressing their tiny cheek to an energetic baby wyvern’s scales. Sometimes, it seemed like mere days had passed since those early years. Some other times, it felt like eons. “I didn’t have a clue until I was, like, eleven.”

“And you didn’t tell her.” 

“Are you kidding? I didn’t want to ruin our friendship!”

“Well, you’ve got to tell her now,” Claude said wryly. “And for what my opinion’s worth, and statistically, that worth is the entire coffers of Almyra so it’s pretty legit, I’m pretty sure she’ll reciprocate those feelings.” 

“You’re the second old man who’s told me that in the past twenty-four hours, what’s wrong with you all? Did one of Uncle Ashe’s romance novels infect everyone with something?” 

_“Because she thinks you’re dating someone else!”_ He leaned in to wrap his arm around their shoulders and perform the daring battle maneuver that was a wvvernback noogie on the protesting kid’s head, ruffling the unruly curls into an even bigger mess. 

“Oh,” Suri said, dropping their gaze to their hands, motioning at the scorch marks on their arms. “That’s why-”

“Why she fried you like a street fair snack, yeah. She thinks you’re dating Laleh.” 

Suri’s resulting jerk almost tipped them off of their saddle again. Arash gave a low grumble beneath them, peeved at his rider’s wiggling. “Why on earth would she think I’m dating anyone, much less dating _Laleh_?” 

Claude examined Suri’s face for any sign of deception, but it was clear, no side glances or tensed brow to indicate anything other than the truth. “You’re telling the truth.”

Suri let out a half-groan half-whine. 

“Yes _,_ now please, tell me what’s going on before another adult decides to get involved and Dimitri holds me over a moat of alligators to confess, or something.” 

Claude told them. 

From the wooded clearing a mile out from the estate grounds, the deer that Petra had been tracking for much of the early morning jumped and bolted past her hiding spot, startled by a sudden sound coming from above. Perturbed, she climbed out of the bush she had been waiting in and squinted through the tree canopy to see the source of the noise. 

High above her, Suri von Riegan, saddle tilted precariously to the side, was cursing a streak as blue as the sky that their wyvern hovered in, cycling through several different languages. Her daughter’s name seemed to feature heavily in them. 

Petra shouldered her bow, abandoning her quest for the deer to head back to the manor. She had a feeling that there was a very interesting story behind this.

\---

From their vantage point, Claude and Suri could get a pretty good view of the entire estate grounds, enough that Claude could probably draw a fairly accurate map of it on wyvernback, a task he had done on many scouting missions in his youth. However, the top-secret, extra important surveillance mission that he was currently undertaking with his child was a bit different.

To the east, the telltale red and black heads of Sylvain and Felix bobbed in the motion that Claude recognized, from above, meant they were atop horses. Hopefully, they were headed off with the picnic basket he had oh-so-carefully left out in the open after his excursion with Dimitri. There weren’t too many other signs of life on the grounds proper until they circled around to check the estate’s western edge and...bingo, there it was. Another signature shock of red hair was moving at a steady pace towards the gardens. Suri made a sound next to Claude, indicating that they had just noticed the same. 

“Well,” he said, gesturing at the scenes below. “Looks as good a time as any, wouldn’t you say so? No fathers to interrupt- that includes me!” Claude raised his hands at Suri’s suspicious gaze. “I’ll be out of your hair and far away from the gardens, promise.” He would do no such thing, obviously, but they needed the reassurance to fully take the bait. Suri let out a very shaky breath. 

“Okay. Okay yeah, I can do this.” 

“Fuck yeah, that’s my- whoa, okay, we’re descending.”

Suri had angled Arash in a steep dive, banking towards the ground at a dizzying pace. Claude didn’t even need to nudge Jasmine to follow, bonded as they were. She simply tossed her head in a huff at the departure and folded her wings to drop them both like a stone through the air, snapping them open at the last possible second before touchdown. 

He scratched her behind an ear as her claws touched gravel. “You big show-off.” She chuffed at him affectionately, flapping her wings a bit in display as Arash reached their level.

Suri leapt the last few feet to the ground, landing solidly in a crouch (Claude noted the excellent form with a point of pride), and looked like they were going to sprint off towards the gardens.

“Button your vest back up,” Claude called, dismounting Jasmine and laying a firm hand on a grumpy Arash’s snout. He tossed his scarf to Suri. “And fix your hair, you look like you’ve been through a tornado.” 

He just barely caught a grumbled “And whose fault is _that_ ,” before the kid broke into a run, wrapping the scarf around their head and trying not to trip. 

Whistling, Claude walked the two wyverns back to their enclosures, promised Arash another outing that wasn’t so bothersome, and strode directly into the nearest doorway of the manor. Their family’s guest rooms were the nearest to the wyvern stables for obvious reasons, so it only took a minute of walking before he could lean his head into their shared bedroom to alert his wife that the next phase of the plan was on.

He rapped once at the door, then stuck his head in without waiting for a response. Hilda looked up at him from the room’s low couch, setting down the belt she was beading. She raised an eyebrow at him. “How did it go?” 

“Just as I thought it would. We landed right after she walked by.” 

“You’re welcome for that,” Hilda said, standing to slip on her shoes. “I told a maid to deep clean her rooms for the next two hours, and told Sylvain and Felix that she was going to help me with my gem work, so they wouldn’t go looking for her. That should leave them alone in the gardens for at least...two and a half hours.”

Gods, he loved her. 

“Gods, I love you,” he said. 

She shot him his favorite sardonic smile. “Yeah, yeah, I’m a mastermind, you’re welcome.” 

He feigned a swoon, dipping back until she caught him with a single arm supporting his weight (what could he say, his type was ‘hot, temperamental, and could throw him across a lake’). She rolled her eyes.

“Hilda, baby, you’re not just a mastermind, you’re an architect of intelligent thought; you’re my sun, my darling, my gorgeous scheming partner in crime.” 

She clucked her tongue at him, pulling him along by the arm through the door. He didn’t resist, happy to let himself be manhandled a little more. “And _you’re_ hottest when you’re complimenting me, but we’re wasting time, Khalid.”

“I apologize, love.” He bowed to her, holding his arm out like a proper Fódlan courtier about to take his lady for a stroll (although he was pretty sure a proper courting stroll traditionally didn’t have one half in dirty riding boots and the other in silk lounge pants). “My lady, would you care to accompany me to eavesdrop on our darling child and their girlfriend?” 

She wrapped her arm in his, pressing a hand to his bicep. “My lord, I thought you’d never ask.” 

They each gave the other a wicked grin, and began to take the shortcut to the gardens. 

\---

The gardens at the northern estate of the royal family were considerably smaller than the collection of greenhouses, topiaries, and exotic trees that the Fhirdiad place boasted, as the thin soil and even chillier climate killed off most of the options for a traditional Fódlan garden. In typical Faerghan fashion, some adaptations had been made to adjust to the (in Claude’s opinion) practically unliveable weather. The majority of plants chosen were ones that would stay evergreen, so pine and holly were well-represented, with the prickly bushes lining a carved stone pathway and circling a small area with tea tables and benches. The entire square of the garden could be lit with the surrounding iron-wrought lanterns dotting the paths, or through a fire pit situated in the center of the social area. A squat greenhouse hummed with life nearby, acting as a provider for the majority of the estate’s fresh fruits and vegetables, but had been augmented with flowers and rare plants through the actions of Dedue and Ashe. Both of whom were currently occupying their time baking cookies with Caroline and Hanna, thanks to some well-timed suggestions Claude had dropped while in their company the previous evening. 

He and Hilda slowed their pace once they reached the outdoor covered pathways connecting parts of the estate to one another, to ensure that no echoing footfalls alerted their targets to their presence. They were rounding the closest corner to the gardens when two voices began to drift into earshot, low murmurs that were universal indicators of an intimate conversation happening. Hilda seemed to have heard the voices too. She tugged on his sleeve, finger to her lips (which was truly a comical sight, her instructing the former director of the Alliance spy network in stealth), pulling him to press their backs against the wall nearest to the garden entrance. 

Through the opening in the stone next to them, Claude could get a decent view of Suri seated at one of the benches next to Anya, practically sitting on their hands in what looked like an attempt to not gesticulate excessively. More importantly though, their conversation was more audible. He glanced down at Hilda for confirmation; she nodded, she could hear too. She poked her head around Claude’s side to get her own view of the two children, and gave a visible (but thankfully silent) adoring sigh. They both settled in against the wall to listen. Suri appeared to be in the middle of a long explanation while Anya, for her part, had a surprisingly unreadable expression on her face- not angry, but not ecstatic either. It appeared that Sylvain had passed his poker face on to at least one of his daughters. 

“-and she’s written to her about once a month since you all last visited, and she _never_ has written me a single letter, as far as I know, not even when I was at the Academy. That’s why I think it was just Daphne screwing with you. It’s like, even half the plot of her mom’s new show, that has to be where she got the idea.”

“So, you’re not dating Laleh.” Even Anya’s voice was even, betraying nothing. Claude started wondering if Byleth was giving her lessons on the sly too. No, she would have told him if she was. Or would she?

“No! I’m not! We’ve never done anything even remotely romantic, she’s known me since I was a _baby_ , that would be so gross.” 

There was an audible hitch in her breathing before Anya spoke again. “Got it. Okay. Yeah, I can see how that would make you not want to date someone.” 

“No! I mean yes, for her, but that’s not- oh gods.” 

Claude heard a thumping noise _._ He peeked back around the corner to see that Suri had dropped their head into their hands. “This is not how I meant to do this,” they groaned. 

He could see Anya’s face flutter through a series of worried-hopeful-concerned expressions before settling on the poker face again, but a little less steady. “What are you talking about? Do what?”

Claude could feel Hilda beside him begin to vibrate with anticipation, smacking him in the side. He nudged her to keep still, managing to keep his ear on the stilted confession happening. It might have been a little harder than he intended, because she planted a heel on his foot in response. Okay, ouch. Yikes. That was why she worked the front lines during the war, and he worked in the back, he thought.

Foot throbbing a bit now, he tried to tune back in. Suri’s face was still in their hands as they spoke. _“Pick your head up and look at her!”_ Claude wanted to shout at them, but he held his tongue. 

“-since we were eleven, I think is when I really realized it, but I always thought I’d grow out of it, or that I was being silly, and then we went to the Academy, and you started dating all those people-”

“You dated people too,” Anya cut in, voice sharper than before. 

“-yeah, I mean, I liked them and they were fun, but-” They finally managed to pry their face from their hands, pulling up to meet her gaze. Claude couldn’t see their expression from his viewpoint, just the back of their head. Their hair was an absolute disaster, barely contained by the scarf. 

“Their hair is an absolute disaster!” Hilda hissed at him, very distressed. He shushed her. He had missed some of what Suri said, catching up mid-sentence.

“-weren’t serious. They weren’t you.” 

Anya’s eyes went very wide at that. Her hands gripped bunches of her skirt, knuckles visibly whitening from even Claude and Hilda’s vantage point. “Oh.” 

Suri coughed out a sharp, slightly hysterical laugh. “Yeah, so, yeah. It’s just you, Anya. Always has been, I think.” 

“Suri...”

They cut her off, desperation beginning to color their voice. “Listen, you don’t have to feel the same way, I just had to tell you that’s why I’d never date Laleh. I’m sorry, I- well, I’m just sorry.”

“You’re _sorry_?”

“Not for feeling this way! Just for not telling you earlier, I guess.” 

“Bring it home, kid,” Hilda whispered. “Stick the landing.” Claude shushed her again. 

Suri laid one of their hands on top of Anya’s clenched one. They leaned in to tell her a short sentence that was too quiet for their unseen parents to hear. Claude still had a pretty good idea of what it was. 

Anya opened her eyes after a long moment, having closed them tightly following the statement. Suri’s back looked tensed, shoulders raised for a coming response. The pine trees behind them rustled gently in the wind, as if they were nervous as well. 

“What about Almyra?” Anya asked.

Suri’s shoulders lost their tension suddenly, dipping lower in surprise. “What about it?”

“I mean, what about your responsibilities there? What about mine here? What are our parents going to think?” 

“They think that you should say it back,” Hilda grumbled under her breath. She dodged Claude’s attempt to clap a hand over her mouth. He could hear Suri let out a breathless laugh. 

“Our parents are the last fucking people who should be judgemental about who we choose to love.” They raised the hand that wasn’t still resting on hers to rub at their forehead, pushing the scarf even further back. It was barely hanging on, having mostly unspooled down, looking like it was aiming to fulfill its original intended purpose around their neck instead. “As for the throne, well, yeah, that’s complicated, but gods willing, I won’t be inheriting that for a while. And as Baba keeps reminding me, even if there’s a compromise there’s always a way to figure out how to still come out on top. I’m willing to put in the work to figure something out.” 

Their voice grew a little more hopeful. “Does this mean you lov...you do too?”

Anya bit her lip, looking down at her lap. As one of the country’s leading experts (and former reigning champ), Claude recognized a struggle to reveal a true emotion when he saw one. “I don’t...really know what love is supposed to feel like in a person.”

Suri’s expression must have dropped dramatically, because she shook her head, looking slightly panicked before continuing, faster, “No, no, wait! I mean, I thought I just wanted you because I’m basically attracted to everybody a little bit all the time, but,” Anya flipped the hand that was under theirs to lace their fingers together. “I couldn’t figure it out for such a long time, but I got so _mad_ when I heard about Laleh, and what you said, I...”

“Yeah, thanks for that,” Suri said, rubbing at their arm. She huffed a pained laugh. 

“I’m sorry for that. Really. If I was better at healing I would-”

They shook their head vigorously. “No! Don’t worry about it, Ev fixed me up fine! I’ve had worse from training, and you know it. I was more worried about why you did it than anything.” 

“I,” Anya started, then stopped, visibly chewing over the words in her head. “Ugh! Goddess! It’s never been this hard. I’m always the one who knows what to say.”

“It’s ok.” Suri let go of her hand and shifted back from her on the bench. “Like I said, you don’t have to-” 

They were stopped from pulling further away by her hand closing tight around their wrist. Their mouth, visible now with their head turned more in Claude and Hilda’s direction, opened to voice a question, but they never got the chance, because Anya suddenly had a hand on either side of their head, tugging it towards her to cover their lips with her own. 

Claude nearly folded in on himself to keep from audibly grunting in pain from the heavy impact that hit his stomach courtesy of Hilda’s celebratory fist pump. She looked up at him gleefully. He tried to mirror her expression of triumph back at her, wincing slightly at his bruised abdomen, but gave her a thumbs-up all the same. Back in the garden, the two had finally pulled apart to breathe, with Anya’s hands still cradling Suri’s face. She looked uncharacteristically shy, but pleased, while they looked like they’d huffed one of Claude’s more noxious concoctions, a dazed grin on their face. 

“I’m not sure how being in love feels,” he could just barely make out Anya saying, “...but you’re the only one I think I’d ever want to try and figure that out with.”

Suri moved their hand to her waist to pull her closer to them. Claude turned away from the window at that point; the kid was afforded _that_ much privacy at least, but he could still hear them, dulled through the wall a bit.

“So we can try?” Came Suri’s voice, lower and muffled. Hilda was still peeking around the window. Claude reached out a hand to pull her back against the wall, which had the added benefit of pressing her against his chest. 

“Yeah. We can try,” they both heard Anya respond, before a period of prolonged silence (that he assumed meant that the two were expressing that sentiment in other ways). Hilda slid her hands up his side, bringing him crashing back into the realization of their current position. She looked absolutely delighted. 

“We are such _geniuses_ ,” she whispered, lips against his chin, before catching him in a kiss of their own. Claude laughed quietly against her, wrapping his arms around her waist, leaning in to his gorgeous, sharp-elbowed, brilliant wife. 

“What do you say we leave them to it?” He whispered back. He lowered her hand to pinch her ass, silencing her resulting giggle with another kiss. She glanced around the corner to check if the coast was clear, then grabbed her own handful of his ass in response. 

“Race you to the-”

“Anyaaaa!”

A call from beyond the garden hedges broke Claude and Hilda apart. Both of them looked at each other, startled, then over to the window. The teenagers had been shocked apart as well, each suddenly pulled to either end of the bench as if magnetized, eyes wide and breathing heavy. Suri’s hair was, by some unbelievable margin, even messier. No one appeared to have caught them in the middle of anything, but- 

“Anya! There you are! Oh hey, Suri.”

Daphne appeared at the far edge of the garden, having just turned the corner. Mischa was following her holding a very red Caroline Gautier-Fraldarius firmly by the elbow. Caroline’s mouth opened in a wail when she caught sight of her sister, and she started struggling against the hold. 

“Anya! Anya! Don’t listen to them, it’s not my fault, Hanna started it!”

Anya shot to her feet. “What’s going on? Is everything okay? Are you hurt?”

“She’s got a busted lip but she’s fine,” Mischa said, calm and collected, grip remaining strong as Caroline thrashed against it uselessly.

“She and Hanna got in a fight.” Daphne said. Her eyes focused on Suri’s disheveled appearance and narrowed. They gave her a little sheepish wave. “They were baking cookies and Dedue had to go help Uncle Dimitri-”

“And she switched my SUGAR with SALT and _ruined_ my cookies, Anya!!!” Faint tear tracks and a bit of snot were streaked across Caroline’s face as she continued to try and wrench her arm out of the princess’s iron grip. 

Anya moved to kneel next to her, hand glowing with weak healing magic as she examined her sister’s face. “And she hit you?”

“Well I-”

“Squirt here threw the first punch, apparently,” Mischa said. “Hanna’s got a black eye, but Evan and Addie are fixing her up.” 

“Her Crest flared up,” Daphne explained. That answered why Mischa was holding her, then, Claude thought, that Blaiddyd Crest strength could come in handy if you needed to keep someone, especially a Crested someone, restrained in a pinch. He tore himself away from going down the alluring mental pathway of images of Dimitri’s hand the night before clenched tight around his- well, never mind. Back to the children and the scene before him. Not to Dima’s arm pinning him against- nope. Back to the gardens.

“Ashe is looking for your dads,” Daphne said. That got another wail from the younger girl. 

“Don’t tell them I hit her! Don’t tell them!”

Anya had finished healing Caroline’s lip, and had coaxed her arm out from Mischa’s grasp. “Caroline, you know better, we only hit each other-”

“-in training, I _know_ , but I spent all afternoon on those cookies and she ruined them!” 

“Alright. I’ll handle this. It’s okay, Caroline, _snuppa_ , calm down.” This seemed to mollify her for a bit as Anya turned to the others. “Can one of you go tell Uncle Ashe to knock off his search for my folks? Me and my sisters can talk about this on our own.” 

“Yeah, sure,” Mischa shrugged, already turning to head back towards the building. “You gotta mean right hook, Squirt, come find me next time you want to punch something, okay?” 

Anya turned back to look at Suri a little helplessly. “Is it ok if we pick this up another time?” 

Suri rose from the bench, having used the distraction to rewrap the scarf around their head, taming the mess for the time being. Hilda and Claude whipped their heads back against the wall in unison as Suri moved so they wouldn’t be seen. Their voice was bright and cheerful, no audible sign that they had just poured their heart out to (and apparently then been thoroughly kissed by) their childhood crush at all. “Yeah, of course, no problem at all! Don’t worry about it. Go take care of them.”

“And what, exactly,” they could hear Daphne ask from behind the wall, “will you be picking up later?” 

“Why Daphne,” came Anya’s reply, sharp as one of her father’s swords and as saccharine as her other father’s flowery compliments. “We were having a wonderful discussion about Suri’s _letter writing_ habits recently.”

Their voices seemed to be moving closer to Claude and Hilda’s hiding spot. His wife shot him a look. “ _T_ _ime to go?_ ” She mouthed at him. He quickly nodded, and pulled her down to creep with him under the window and back towards their chambers, silent as the grave until they slipped back inside. 

Once the door finally closed behind them there was a pause for one, two, three seconds before they both exhaled the breath they had been holding, and high-fived, victorious. 

“I can’t believe it actually worked,” Hilda crowed, flinging her arms around his neck. “Byleth owes me a hundred gold.” 

“What, Teach knew about all this?” 

She laughed. “Oh, no, we made a bet years ago about who was going to confess first, and I totally just won.” She let him twirl her around in a lazy spin, grinning. “Oh, it was sooo beautiful _,_ I think for their engagement rings we should go with a nice opal, maybe moonstone if I can find it, oh, and I bet Mari would love to help embroider her veil-”

“Hold on, hold on,” Claude stopped her mid-spin, chuckling. “One teenaged half-love confession in a garden does not mean that they’re engaged.” 

Hilda rolled her eyes at him. “Baby, I love you, but leave this to the experts here; it took you an embarrassing amount of time to realize that with Dima, and he and Byleth were practically handing you the keys and a personalized invitation to their chambers before you could figure that out.” 

“He...did give me a key, actually,” Claude cringed at the memory. “I just thought it was in case we needed to strategize in private!” 

“See what I mean!” Hilda squished his face in between her hands. “Ugh, my sweet, silly Khalid. I know what I’m talking about, you’ll see.” 

He snorted at her. “Anya didn’t even say the L-word, sweetheart. It’s going to take some time.” 

Her eyes gleamed bright with plans. “Don’t you worry your pretty head about it, now. The kid said the words, now all the rest of the pieces have to do is fall in place.” 

“We are _geniuses_.” 

“We really are. Now,” she said, tugging at the hem of his shirt. “I can think of a great way to celebrate.” 

Claude laughed as he helped her pull it up and over his head, tossing it somewhere behind him. “This is how you celebrate everything, Hil.” 

“Why? Can you think of something better?”

He pretended to pause in the middle of taking off his boots, pressing a finger to his lips in fake contemplation. 

“Claude!” 

“Well, there’s always- ow!” 

She had tackled him, laughing. He let her pick him up, and sweep him off to their bed. 

Everything was coming up Von Riegen. 

\---

Before Felix took the certification test to be a Swordmaster, Byleth had made him master the Archer class. When he had asked, with all the scorn that his seventeen-year-old self could muster, why he had to spend two moons practicing nothing but archery, she had fixed him with her odd, blank stare and simply told him that he had a sharp eye. She had been right, as she so often was. After that, he almost never missed a mark. 

It was precisely because of this that Felix could tell that some dynamic had drastically changed between Suri and Anya less than a minute into the start of dinner. He didn’t think anyone else could see it without prior knowledge of the talk he and Suri had, but there was no mistaking the looks they were shooting each other across the long table as something far deeper than their usual casual flirtation. 

For one thing, he had never seen his confident, brash daughter look so...bashful, almost, but she was casting her eyes down practically every time her hand brushed theirs, which they kept seeming to find more and more excuses to do: reaching for the same pitcher, lingering as they passed a plate across the table, even at one point wiping a bit of sauce off of Suri’s cheek with a napkin that lingered on their lips. Felix was _sure_ someone else had to have noticed that, at the very least, but no one was showing any signs of recognition. The kids were practically glowing bright red with suppressed affection, and he didn’t know why anyone else couldn’t point it out. And to think people called him emotionally illiterate. Hmph. 

The couple- well, were they a couple now? They certainly seemed like they had admitted something to each other, but no one had made any announcements, and they were taking great care to not hold hands or touch for too long at any certain point. Neither of their two closest friends sitting next to them appeared to have any idea. Felix felt his temple begin to throb. The headache ramped up as the flirting did until the dessert course, which was when he finally, finally snapped. 

The inciting incident in question went like this: Suri, who had been hanging a spoon off their nose to their laughing audience of friends, had the utensil slip off of their face and clatter to the floor. Immediately, they dived down to grab it- right as the same time as Anya. The two of them froze as they met the other’s eyes under the table, hands stilled atop one another over the forgotten piece of silver. He could see Suri’s mouth form unreadable words to his daughter while silently, cocking their head toward the doors. The whole scene was so infuriatingly cliché that Felix actually groaned out loud. He shut his mouth halfway through and looked elsewhere before his husband could glance over to see.

The noise apparently had alerted Suri and Anya out of whatever reverie they had been in over the fallen spoon, and both of them immediately popped back up. Suri waved it in the air, triumphant, while Anya quickly grabbed a drink of her water to hide her blushing face. Felix wanted to kick something. 

Across from him, Sylvain was none the wiser, in the animated middle of one of his zanier stories to an assembled audience of their other daughters, Byleth, and Dimitri. 

“-and then Uncle Dima pulled the dandelion right out of the ground and ate the _whole_ thing, roots and all-” 

“Uncle Dima!!” 

“DAD. WHY.”

Felix tuned them out as his eye caught another couple at one of the adjoining tables. Claude and Hilda were staring, not unsubtly, at exactly the same scene of the teenagers, eyes alight with what Felix uncomfortably recognized as their best scheming expressions. He watched as Suri bumped Anya’s foot gently with theirs, poking the toe of their boot against her ankle as she hid a giggle behind her cup. Looking back up to the Almyran royal couple, he was met with the horrifying sight of Hilda smugly fist-bumping her husband. Felix’s eyes narrowed so hard that the world turned to a razor-thin image. They had something to do with this. He was sure of it. 

The _thunk_ of palms meeting wood startled Sylvain out of his storytelling as Felix slammed his palms down on the table and stood up. Sylvain gave him a worried look. “Fe? You good?” 

Felix ignored him in favor of striding directly to Claude’s table. He leaned in over the plates, not caring how imposing or aggressive the action may have appeared to those around him, and pointed a finger at the amused face of the king. Claude raised a single, consternating eyebrow at him. “Can I help you, Duke Fraldarius?” 

“You. Get up. We’re talking outside.” Felix was too wound up to feign subtlety. Claude never helped with that particular area either; if anything, he had always clearly reveled in the act of teasing Felix until the Duke snapped (leading to hundreds of splintered training swords added up over the years that Felix had broken working off the frustration following international council meetings).

“Fe?” Sylvain called again, from his seat. He, the girls, and the other royal couple were staring at him. In fact, he realized, he had unintentionally drawn the attention of everyone in the dining hall. His hand lost the fierce point mid-air, and fell limply to his side. Oh, Goddess. Felix had never been good at handling being the center of attention. 

He opened his mouth hoping that it would spit out an acceptable lie (that his brain seemed to be conveniently fresh out of). He closed it. One more time, and then he would just make a break for it. It’s not like they hadn’t seen him have worse outbursts, after all. He opened his mouth again, internally cringing. “I...”

“Oh goodness, you’re right, Felix!” Claude’s overly loud voice interrupted whatever clumsy excuse he was going to rasp out. “I _completely_ forgot to return those documents to you, when I know you had questions about them, I’m so sorry for making you wait this long! Silly me, getting distracted by this positively sinful apple pie.” 

Sylvain, Byleth, and Dimitri all very clearly looked like they didn’t believe him, but Claude was already throwing an arm around Felix’s shoulders and sweeping him out of the dining hall. “This will just take a second, go back to eating everyone! Hilda, don’t touch my pie.” Felix had just enough time and range of motion left to turn his head and mouth “ _I’ll tell you later,”_ to Sylvain before being whisked through the doors, elbowing his way out of Claude’s grip the second they were out of sight. 

“Do you have any idea what that was about, Hilda?” Sylvain asked, back inside the dining hall. The only response he received back from her was a hum and nonplussed shrug, her mouth too full of Claude’s slice of pie to speak.

\---

Claude’s back hit an aged tapestry depicting some sort of faded hunting scene after Felix dragged him further down the hallway. “Listen, Fraldarius, I know me and Hil have an open thing going, but you’re definitely not my first choice of people to get down and dirty with out here in the-”

“Can it, Claude,” Felix said. The flame of his initial temper had waned a bit after the whole dining room had focused their suffocating attention on him. 

“Wow, we’re using first names, this must be something serious.” 

Felix let go of his arm, and made deliberate eye contact with him. “Suri and Anya. You did something.”

“Ah, so you’re the other ‘old man’ who called them out on it,” Claude grinned. “Yeah, guilty as charged. I can’t say I’m surprised that it was you.”

It was Felix’s turn to lean against the tapestry, settling in next to him and fixing his stare at the opposite wall. He could feel the unyielding stone backbone of the estate pressing up against his spine, just barely softened by the thinning weave of the fabric. “I hate to admit it, but hearing that about myself now kind of makes me regret calling my father that so often. We’re not even that fucking old.” _You’re going to get older than Rodrigue ever was soon,_ his mind whispered. He winced, but shook it off. “You don’t even have any grey hair, which is shocking considering who you had to raise.”

That got a chuckle out of the man next to him. He banged the back of his head against the wall, hitting an elaborately stitched image of a deer. (Felix wondered how much sheer snark a person had to build up in order to have even their unconscious actions be ironic). “You wanna know a secret?” Claude asked. “I dye it. I’ve got little white ones right...here,” he pointed to an unremarkable looking section of hair near his ears. It was a flawless dye job. If he was telling the truth. “I’ve had them since the second year of the war.” 

“That stressed, huh,” Felix deadpanned. 

Claude let out a hearty laugh. If he was anyone else, Felix wouldn’t have been able to catch the tinge of bitterness that lingered underneath. “Weren’t we all?” 

“You had a lot more to hide.” 

“I had a lot more to prove,” he corrected, mildly. “And speaking of proof, I do happen to know what happened with our dear children this afternoon.” 

Felix crossed his arms, raising an eyebrow. “So? Start talking.” 

Claude’s response was a smug, pointed grin. “Come on now, is that any way to speak to your daughter’s future father-in-law?” 

The tapestry was almost ripped from its hangings from the speed with which Felix whipped around to look at him. “They’re _engaged_?” 

The king actually doubled over with laughter next to him, wheezing a bit. “Oh gods, no, but you should have seen your face! That was so good!” 

Felix glowered at him. “I’m not above regicide, von Riegan.”

Claude eased himself up slowly, wiping a tear that had squeezed out of his eye from mirth. “Couldn’t help it, sorry, Fraldarius. It was too good to pass up. Although hey, it could still turn out to be true? Who knows when it comes to teenage love? You’ve got more experience than that with me, in any case.” 

It was starting to be a struggle to keep a lid on the hot flame of anger that he had so recently just tempered down. “Tell me. What happened.” 

Claude swiped another bit of wetness from his eye with a thumb. “Phew, okay. Yeah. They met in the garden this morning, and Suri basically explained the letter incident.” 

“Letter incident?”

“Oh, you didn’t know about that either? Yikes. It’s why Anya lit their ass up yesterday in training the other day. You really didn’t think she had a motive for that?” 

“I mean,” Felix paused, “I figured there was _something_ , but I wasn’t sure what. I did tell them to go confess after that, though.”

“Yeah, because if there’s one thing you know about, it’s romantic-tensionally charged sparring, am I right?”

He felt himself flush despite his best efforts. “Shut up. Maybe. Yeah.” 

Claude smirked. “Thought so. Anyway, it’s Daphne’s fault; she apparently took it upon herself to reenact the second act of her mom’s new opera to fuck with them."

“I don’t know what that is.”

“Really?? You haven’t read the book it’s based on? Ask Dima to lend you his copy, it’s really good. I won’t tell you what she did, then, I don’t want to spoil it for you.”

Felix rolled his eyes. “Fine, okay, so Daphne fucked with them with some scheme from a play-”

“Opera.”

“-opera.” he corrected himself through gritted teeth. “And Anya got pissed and shocked the daylights out of Suri.”

“Then you gave them what I’m sure was a _very_ intimidating father talk. Tell me, were you holding a sword during it, or was it just within arm’s reach?”

“Get to the point.”

“Was that a pun? Hey!” Claude rubbed his arm from where Felix had not-too-lightly punched him. “Okay, so then, Suri ran off to lick their physical and metaphorical wounds all night, and Hilda and I made a truly excellent plan to get them alone together the next day.”

“And what was that?”

Claude cocked his head, sly as anything. “Did you and your hubby enjoy your picnic?” 

Felix smacked his other arm, a little harder. 

“Ow! Why are your knuckles so pointy?” 

“Hurry up before one of our partners comes out here.” 

“Okay, okay. They met up in the garden this morning, like I said, Suri apologized, gave a confession that I’ll rate seven wyverns out of ten for effort and earnestness, and then Anya kissed them. Hilda and I saw the whole thing. Haven’t said anything to them yet, but I think Hil’s planning something else.”

Felix crossed his arms again. “And you won’t ask her what she’s planning...why?”

“Have you ever known my darling wife to be anything but stubborn? I couldn’t get it out of her if I tried.” Claude’s eyes shone bright with love and admiration. “She’s every interrogator’s worst nightmare.” 

Felix huffed out a laugh. “I guess you’re right.” He leaned back against the tapestry, right on top of a worn depiction of a flat-faced knight in Blaiddyd blue wrestling a peacock, or some shit. Ancient art was weird. “So, where do we go from here?”

“Just let them figure it out, I guess. They’re basically adults,” Claude replied. “ _I’m_ not the expert here on the transition from childhood friends to lovers, but I’d definitely put some gold on something more serious down the line. What do you think?” 

“I...I’m pretty sure I’d add some gold to that too,” Felix admitted. “Sylvain’s adamant that he doesn’t see it, though.” 

“Oh, how the tables have turned.” 

That got a wry smile out of him. “I know. But I’ll leave them their space for now.” 

“I think that’s the right move,” Claude agreed. He pushed himself off of the wall and motioned towards the dining hall. “The garden plan was just to kick-start things. Hil and I aren’t planning on any schemes in the near future involving them.”

“If I had a fucking gold every time you’ve said that-”

“Touché, your grace. Shoot us a letter if you’re interested, though.” He reached for the handles of the doors. “After you?”

Felix swallowed his pride and put a hand on his shoulder before he could open them. “Claude.” He held out his hand for him to shake. “Thanks.” 

Despite all of his slippery words and expressions, Claude’s handshake was a solid, kind thing. “Any time, Felix. The kids are worth it.”

When they re-entered the dining hall, they were met with a much louder cacophony of voices all talking over one another. The noise paused for a moment for the group to acknowledge their entrance, and then broke in a series of laughter, the majority of it paired with glances at Claude. Both men froze in place just steps inside the room. Up close, Felix could see the corners of Claude’s smile twitch a bit.

Sylvain’s loud voice broke through the din to shout over at them. “Hey, King Khalid! I was just talking with Dimitri and Byleth about Bernie’s new novel, and you’ll never guess, but it turns out that we _all_ had some thoughts about a certain scene on page 127!”

“You never told us you were into that, Claude,” Byleth called. Her large eyes retained their normal innocent placidity, but her smirk was pure, wicked mischief. 

“They’ve got a couple questions, your highness, and I do too! For instance, if I wanted to do that, but _backwards_ , is there some type of height adjustment I need to make, or-”

Sylvain continued to spout his own personal brand of inane innuendo as Felix took in the sight of the room. Their assembled friends all appeared to be discussing the scene from the book, with Ashe glancing at a copy of it with interest over Dedue’s shoulder. Next to them, Ingrid was bright scarlet, probably just having finished reading it herself. Anya was holding the only other copy of the book that seemed to be in the room above her head, using her considerable height advantage to keep it away from Hanna, who was jumping to grab it fruitlessly. Her other three friends looked like they had dissolved completely into unhelpful fits of giggles. 

Claude patted Felix on the back before dropping in his seat next to Hilda, who had arranged her peas and mashed potatoes in strange piles on her plate and was moving one of them around with her fork, motioning to an enraptured Dorothea and Petra. 

“Do you see the trouble you’ve caused me by telling Bernadetta those heinous lies about our sex life?” He asked, ignoring Sylvain and Byleth’s laughter.

Hilda looked up, unconcerned. “Who said they were lies? Or about you?”

“Fine then, not lies, slander. Pure, uncut slander, from inside my own house, no less!”

“I don’t know,” Hilda replied, spearing a stray carrot with her fork and waving it thoughtfully in the air. “That Duke Jasper sounds like he really knows his way around a woman. He might be fictional, but I certainly wouldn’t mind spending a night or two with him.”

Few people on the continent could say that they had seen the High King of Almyra slump with the entirety of his body and bang his head against a table, but everyone in the surrounding area suddenly became newly minted members of that club.

Hilda let her husband sulk behind her as she turned back to Dorothea and Petra. “Okay, now,” she said, motioning with a spoon, “if you wanted to modify this for you two, you would hypothetically need to move this _here_ …”

Felix sank into his own chair next to Sylvain, who had finally paused his heckling to take a drink of his wine. His eyes twinkled from behind his cup. 

“Were you the one who started all of this?” Felix asked, partly under his breath. 

Sylvain matched his low tone. “Why, what gave it away?” His face lit up in pleasure from Felix’s resulting small grin. The expression turned serious for a moment as he nodded over to Claude’s form, still face down and groaning. “Everything okay with him? Anything I need to really get involved in?”

Felix shook his head. A wave of contentment washed through his body, up past the usual tides of alertness. It made his brain go a little fuzzy as he leaned into the warm, solid side of Sylvain. “No, don’t worry, it’s fine. I think everything is going to turn out alright.”

“You know I’m going to figure out what it was eventually, right, Fe?”

“You know,” he replied, “I have a feeling it won’t be much longer before you do, love.”

\---

Something Anya had always hated about herself was that when she was wound up, she had the complete inability to sit still. She had tried, of course, even managing to make it partially through the usual after-dinner game; a custom one that the adults had apparently started during the war as a thought exercise, but had morphed into an actual competitive game with a wooden map of the continent and carved ivory pieces to capture. She had just managed to retain enough focus to capture Morfis from her dad, but quickly lost both it and Brigid to a trick strategy from Adelaide, knocking her out of the game entirely. It was probably for the best- her leg had begun to uncontrollably bounce, vibrating her dwindling pile of game tokens, and she had been pushing the last dregs of her concentration towards containing the rolling electricity in her gut instead of tactics. 

She stood from the table, congratulated a pleased Addie, and left her to face off with her mother, Claude, and her Pa, who had a hand buried deep into hair that matched hers, intensely set over protecting his last country on the board.

“Are you headed to bed, Anya?” Evan asked, looking up from the letter he was writing near the fireplace. Most of the rest of them had cleared out for the night already; even Suri had disappeared earlier in the evening. (Anya definitely hadn’t been spending the last few hours wondering where they could have gone, not at all). Next to Evan, Dorothea was drifting in and out of sleep with her head on Petra’s shoulder. Anya floundered a little, trying to maintain her focus on something that wasn’t memory of the hand she could still feel gripping her waist or the exact feel and taste of Suri’s lips like she had been for the entirety of the afternoon through to the evening, but her resolve was cracking. 

“Yeah, um, I guess,” she managed to get out. It wasn’t her most eloquent deflection, but it would have to do. Everyone was already dressed down for the night, so she figured that her simple shift dress would be fine if she just collapsed into her bed once she made it to her room. She felt as if she was burning up from the inside.

Hilda rose to her feet from a nearby couch, patting her husband on the shoulder. “You know, I think I’ll head out too. They’re taking forever to finish this game and I’m bored.” Anya could see Claude shoot Hilda an unreadable, probably annoyed, expression. She yawned back at him. “You could have won three moves ago, Khalid. You’re dragging this out on purpose. I’m going to get some air before I go- would you like to join me, Anya?”

She said the last part over her shoulder, not waiting for a response as she exited the parlor, walking out to one of the larger balconies of an adjoining room. Anya hurried to catch up, leaving the others to their relaxation.

“Are you really deliberately losing, Claude?” Sylvain asked behind them, leaning into the board. 

“He gave up half his navy two turns ago,” Adelaide drawled. “Your eyesight is getting bad, Uncle Syl.”

“You know, sometimes you’re just too much like your mother, Addie.”

Anya followed Hilda out into the night, shivering a bit as her body adjusted from the cozy parlor to the telltale bite of a Faerghus fall. The queen was resting her forearms on the balcony’s railing, leaning forward into the autumn wind. Her hair was uncharacteristically out of any styling, instead falling unimpeded past her waist in slightly frizzy brushed-out rose waves that drifted airily in pieces like the leaves below. Her feet were bare, but she seemed unbothered by the chilled stone.

“Something I always found weird,” she began, casually and unprompted without turning around, her voice breaking through the still night, “was that I never missed the cold. When I moved to Almyra, I mean.” 

She turned her head to look at Anya. 

“Do you know what my brother told me before I left? He said that I would cave after the first summer, and write to him begging for him to ship me wagons full of ice and snow, and that I would have to have a servant follow me around all day with a fan just to keep me from sweating.” 

There was a pregnant pause that lingered in the air despite the breeze. Anya shifted, realizing that she was being cued to prompt her to continue. 

“What did you say to him?” 

Hilda gave a wry smile, an odd look without her usual immaculate lipstick application, but surprisingly cutting, even against her bare face. 

“I told him that they had mechanical fans in Almyra. He had never been. He wasn’t aware.” 

“I also told him,” she added, “that the palace already had an icehouse installed, but if I wanted snow, I would take a wyvern myself to the Throat and fill my saddlebags on the mountains.” 

Anya found herself leaning on the railing too, mirroring the queen’s posture as she listened. Hilda stretched her arms out in front of her, rolling her shoulders before continuing. 

“I think that came as somewhat of a shock to him. I get it,” she chuckled, “I never had the best track record with doing anything by myself if I didn’t have to. I used to complain to Byleth every time she made me perform any axe maneuver besides the basic drills. I even talked your dad into returning my overdue books to the library for half a year before he caught on to what I was doing, even though my room was closer, just because I could.” 

“He never told me that,” Anya said, delighted. 

“Yeah, that’s not surprising,” Hilda smirked. “Gods and Goddess bless that ridiculous man, making us smart pretty people look bad.” 

She had propped her chin in her hand by this point, and was gazing out towards the peaks in the distance. They were closer to the Gautier-Fraldarius border with Sreng than the queen’s own birthplace, but Anya supposed that from a distance, they could look the same. 

Hilda kept talking, all while keeping her eyes fixed on the mountains. “The war changed a lot. You’ve heard that sentence so many times by now, I know, and I’m sorry for adding to that.” 

Anya snorted. “If I had a gold for every emotional war story I’ve heard-”

“-you’d have enough to buy Castle Blaiddyd, I know,” Hilda finished for her, shaking her head amusedly. “That’s the only time I’ll say it, I promise.” 

“You don’t have to apologize.” 

“Yeah, but I wanna, so deal with it. Look, I had been making decisions by myself for _years_ in the war. You know, by the end of it all, I was running half the Alliance infantry and all of the armored divisions? No one ever seemed to catch onto that.” 

Anya frowned. “Why not?” 

“Ehh, my stellar delegation tactics, probably. Pick good captains at the start, and it’s a lot less hassle down the line.” She brushed a rebellious lock of hair back over her shoulder, letting it join the rest of the pink waves. 

“I also handpicked the first merchants for the trade route to Fhirdiad once your family took it back over. Oh! I just remembered! I got Holst and Nader to meet each other on common ground through their dumb drinking games, even though my husband likes to brag about his hand in that. Khalid in a drinking contest? As if- that beautiful lightweight never drinks more than a single glass of wine at any public function.” 

“I...never noticed that.”

Hilda laughed. “He’s good at hiding it, don’t feel bad about missing it. He’s fooled a _lot_ of people. What I meant all this to say is, well, I don’t think I ever realized how much I was doing on my own until much later.” 

She paused here, and sighed. 

“Despite all that, after the war, accepting Claude’s marriage proposal felt like the first true decision I’d made, that it was something to be proud of. And do you know what the Alliance lords said then?” 

Anya didn’t have to be prompted this time. “That it was for the boy.” 

“That it was for the boy.” Hilda agreed. She looked like she wanted to scowl, but the expression slid off her face as quickly as it had appeared. “And for the power, and the money, and the palace.” 

“Don’t get me wrong, the boy is pretty great. Claude had, well, _has_ , a lot of the same tendencies as me. It’s why I liked him so much when we first met, and why I’ve stuck by his side for so long. That, and the fact that he could crush a watermelon with his thighs, I mean.” She winked at Anya, who laughed back at her. 

“You say that like you can’t do that yourself, your majesty.” 

It was Hilda’s turn to laugh. “Well. Aren’t we all a little attracted to our own qualities in other people? At least those of us who are intelligent enough to have a little vanity, that is.” 

She gave a pleased, but sharp smile, letting herself drift further in reminiscing. 

“I genuinely thought I would be a good queen because I saw the skills that I had built up during the war and knew that they would help me rule. I knew that I loved Claude and that he loved me, and would treat me equally as a partner. He told me all that when he proposed too, because he’s a wordy bastard. You gotta marry someone who will give you a sincere compliment, _especially_ if they give bullshit ones to everyone else. Means that you’re special to them, you know?” 

Anya thought she did know. Her stomach flipped upside-down, but she steadfastly ignored it. 

“He gave me so many outs, because of course he did, he knew me. I could have stayed in the Throat, let my brother and cousins run the place and live in peace with Marianne until we died. I could have spent my time in Almyra doing nothing but eating dates on cushioned couches and drinking wine instead of attending court meetings. Hell, I could have refused to have a child with him at any point, and he would have been fine with living without an heir!” 

“But you didn’t.” 

“Obviously not. But, the important thing was that those were my choices to make, and I made them all on my own. And they were the choices that led me to where I am right now, at peace, at home, with my family.” 

She pushed herself off of the railing, her light skirts settling moments later around her feet. 

“So I never missed the cold, not once, not during my first summer in Almyra, or my second, or my tenth. I made myself get used to the heat. And then, the first winter I came back to Fódlan, I thought that I would freeze, that the heat had settled in my blood and replaced the snow.” 

Anya gestured at Hilda’s bare feet, at her thin garments. “Obviously not.” 

A soft smile met that. “Obviously not. The cold was always in my blood. I just chose to let the heat in as well. And it made me stronger for it.”

“Were you scared to try?” Anya flexed her fingers at her side, feeling the wind attempt to nip at her skin. 

“Of course I was! I was for every major decision. I would be an idiot not to be wary. But, it’s a leap of faith every time. You have to find someone to trust, and you have to trust yourself. That can get you quite a long way.” 

Hilda laid a cool hand on Anya’s arm. “I’m headed back inside. I’ll give you your moment alone now.” 

“Thank you, your majesty.” 

The queen's eyes sparkled at her title. “I’d offer you a cloak, but I don’t think you need one out here. The mountains are in your blood too.” 

She left Anya standing on the balcony by herself, closing the doors behind her with a soft click.

The night air had stilled for once, leaving behind a faint aura of smoke and pine, settling around her like the heavy quilts of her home. Almost without thinking, she found herself performing the ritual she would have at her own estate on her own balcony, removing her hairpins and undoing her braids to let her hair fall down unimpeded. It smelled like pomade, and honey, and lingering Almyran herbs. 

A wind whipped it around suddenly, much stronger than any breeze before, followed by a reverberating thump of leathery wings that almost staggered her. 

“Hey, Anya!”

A dark wyvern swooped down from above, hovering expertly by the balcony, its maw just inches from her own face. She jumped back slightly at its sudden appearance, and at the enthusiastic call that broke the night’s silence. A pink streak of hair was the first thing she noticed of the rider. It stood out against the muted saddle and clothing of their mount, specifically chosen to blend into the night. 

Suri’s smile was gleaming even in the dark. “Would you like to go for a ride?” 

They held out their hand towards her, maneuvering Arash so his side was parallel to the balcony. “Come on, hop on!” 

Anya cautiously approached the railing once again, cursing having taken her hair down as it flung itself across her eyes and into her mouth. 

She spat out a few pieces of hair, ignoring how unattractive it probably looked. “Is it safe for me to get on?” 

“Just get up on the railing and jump, I promise I won’t drop you! My hands are used to handling valuable things.”

They grinned at her, holding their reins casually in one hand, the other extended towards her, palm up. 

She laughed, hoping to any god or goddess who might be listening that it wasn’t too shaky. “Suri, I-”

“Ahn,” they said, much quieter than before, but it carried across the night just the same. “Do you trust me?”

Anya felt the familiar buzz of electricity break free and lick through her body, lighting up every synapse, but her fingers did not spark. In the distance, the mountain border stood vigil over the two. 

“Yeah, Suri. Of course I do.” 

She took one breath, and then two, before hoisting herself up onto the thin top of the metal rails, balancing on the balls of her feet. She took Suri’s hand, matching their solid grasp as if they had been practicing their whole lives. Maybe they had. Or, maybe they were just starting. 

“Alright, show me what you’ve got.” 

With her family through the doors behind her, backlit by the candles of the manor and a waiting moon, Anya allowed herself to fall. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, wow, we’re done with part one! Yeah, part one. This took me ages to write, but I am hoping to add two more parts to make it a trilogy, with the next two focusing on another major life event for the kids several years later, and then a final one even further in the future. Extra points if you can guess what they are! 
> 
> To stay on theme and quote my high school yearbook: it’s not goodbye, it’s see you later. Stay safe out there, folks.


End file.
